"If you build it, they will come."
That was one resident's response at a March meeting where Chicago Cubs officials pitched a plan to nearly double a parking lot a few blocks from Wrigley Field. Five months, three community meetings, a demolition, and more than 1,600 petition signatures later, the fenced dirt lot at the corner of Racine Avenue and Grace Street is still just that: a fenced dirt lot. Nothing has been approved. Nothing has been built. If you live in East Lakeview and have been half-following this story through a scroll of conflicting headlines, here's what's actually true based on the latest reporting, and what it means for your street before the Cubs play another home game.
What's Sitting There Right Now
The Cubs' Camry Lot, at 1126 W. Grace St., currently holds 688 parking spaces, according to Will McIntee, the team's director of government and community affairs. In March, the Cubs proposed adding 259 more by absorbing the property next door at 1114 W. Grace St., formerly the House of the Good Shepherd, a domestic violence shelter run by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago that closed and relocated its programs elsewhere in the city. If approved, the lot would grow to as many as 947 spaces. Some opposition materials cite a lower starting figure of 579, putting the increase closer to 368 spaces. Either way, the direction is the same: a large surface lot getting substantially larger.
The city issued a demolition permit for the shelter building on April 20, and the Cubs began tearing it down in late April. By June, crews had also removed 29 mature trees from the property. That demolition is finished. The expansion that was supposed to follow it is not close to finished, and that gap between "the building is gone" and "the parking lot is approved" is the part that keeps confusing people walking past the site.
The Case the Cubs Are Making
Team representatives have leaned on a specific set of numbers to justify the project. At a May meeting, a Cubs representative said the ballpark currently has "one parking space for roughly every 26 fans," contrasting Wrigley's parking supply with other professional sports venues in Chicago and around the country. Streetsblog Chicago's own coverage of that meeting made a similar comparison in the other direction, noting that Sox Park sits in what the outlet called a parking moat of surface lots, unlike Wrigley's public-facing Gallagher Way plaza. The Cubs also cite an internal survey showing that about 37 percent of game attendees drive to Wrigley Field while 63 percent walk, bike, or take transit, and that roughly 35 percent of attendees travel from more than 50 miles away, a share the team says leans on suburban and out-of-state fans who are less likely to have a transit option.
Here's the tension nobody on either side has fully resolved. The same Cubs officials pushing this expansion have also acknowledged, on the record, that driving to Wrigley is becoming less common. "I think our demand for driving is dropping," one team representative said at that May meeting, before adding, "we still have more people driving than we have spaces to accommodate them." Michael Lufrano, the Cubs' executive vice president of community, government and legal affairs, has framed the project less as growth and more as redirection: keep the drivers who already exist off residential blocks. "If we can't provide them a place to park, they're going to park on neighborhood streets," Lufrano told a March community meeting. "They're going to park elsewhere in the community."
That is a real and long-standing complaint from residents near the ballpark. Whether the fix for it is 259 more spaces of surface parking, in one of the most transit-connected neighborhoods in the city, is exactly where the disagreement lives.
What Neighbors Are Actually Asking For
The opposition isn't a vague objection to more cars. Organized largely through a group called Lakeview Urbanists and through the East Lakeview Neighbors association, residents met with Cubs representatives and staff from the offices of Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th) and Ald. Angela Clay (46th) on June 30 to lay out specific conditions they want written into the project's planned development amendment before it advances. Their list includes:
- More interior landscaping than the current proposal includes, to meet the city's own landscape ordinance for a lot this size
- Replacement of the 29 mature trees removed from the former shelter site in June
- A public stormwater management plan and traffic study
- Limits on lighting and security camera spillover onto neighboring homes
- A pause on further work until those items are resolved
The Cubs have pushed back on parts of this, arguing the finished project would leave the site with a net addition of trees and that the old shelter building's basement will be preserved for stormwater retention. Residents remain skeptical, partly because the tree removal happened before those assurances were formalized in writing. By mid-July, residents had gathered more than 1,600 signatures on a petition tied to these specific conditions, on top of an earlier letter-writing campaign this spring that generated roughly 2,600 messages to elected officials and the Cubs.
Why Nothing Resolves This Season
Here's the detail that matters most if you live within a few blocks of the ballpark: the project still needs sign-off from the Chicago Plan Commission and the full City Council, and as of the most recent reporting in mid-July, neither has happened. Ald. Lawson, whose ward includes the site, had not taken a public position on the proposal as of May, with his office indicating that community feedback would factor into a final decision.
More telling is what Lufrano himself said in July: the project is unlikely to be finished this season. The Cubs had originally hoped to have the expanded lot ready before Wrigley hosts the All-Star Game in 2027, and that timeline hasn't officially collapsed, but there's no scenario in the current reporting where shovels are back in the ground before the 2026 season ends. That means the fenced, empty former shelter site will most likely sit exactly as it is, through the rest of this Cubs season and likely into next year, regardless of how the political fight resolves.
What Actually Governs Your Street Right Now
While this plays out, the rules that shape gameday on your block haven't changed and won't change based on how the Plan Commission votes. Residential Permit Parking Zone 383, which covers the area from Belmont to Irving Park and Broadway to Ashland in the 44th Ward, is strictly enforced on Cubs gamedays. On night games, that zone converts to a tow zone starting at 5 p.m. for any vehicle without a valid permit or a displayed guest pass. That enforcement schedule exists independent of the Camry Lot fight and isn't up for a vote.
If you're trying to figure out what's real amid months of dueling press releases, that's probably the most useful thing to hold onto. The number that will likely change your street this season isn't 947, or 688, or 1,600. It's 5 p.m., the hour Zone 383 enforcement kicks in on any night the Cubs play at home, whether the lot down the street ever gets built or not.
For everything else, this one is worth watching rather than reacting to. The Plan Commission hearing, whenever it's scheduled, is the next real checkpoint. Until then, the dirt lot on Grace Street is a placeholder, not a preview.
If you're weighing a move near this corridor, thinking through how gameday logistics affect a specific block, or just want a straight read on what's actually happening in the neighborhood before you make a decision, Andy Ogorzaly is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
