The Legacy — Evanston, Illinois

Horizon Realty Group broke ground on The Legacy, a residential tower in downtown Evanston, Illinois, in April 2026. Developers and city council members marked the start at a ceremony on 22 April.

Project Scope

Pappageorge Haymes is the design architect, Myefski Architects is the architect of record, and Valenti is the contractor. Splitting design architect from architect of record is standard on Chicago-area residential work: the design firm carries the concept while a local practice takes production drawings and code responsibility, which also puts a firm with Evanston permitting experience in front of the building department.

Publicly confirmed detail on unit count and building height remains limited at this stage.

Horizon Realty Group is the owner-developer, not a merchant builder, so the company will still hold and manage the building after handover. That tends to change specification decisions on the things that cost an owner money over twenty years: envelope, mechanical systems and common area finishes.

Why It Matters

Evanston sits at the north end of the CTA Purple Line, next to Northwestern University, which makes its downtown one of the few North Shore locations where dense residential development pencils out. Rental projects there compete with downtown Chicago on transit access while working through a different approvals process and a smaller competitive supply pipeline.

Construction costs have moderated without making apartment development straightforward. Contractor competition has improved and materials prices have largely stopped climbing, but they stopped at a higher level than developers underwrote three years ago. Projects that reached groundbreaking in 2026 generally cleared their capital stack under those conditions rather than in spite of them, which is why relatively few North Shore towers have started.

The team composition is also worth noting for anyone tracking the Chicago market: a local owner-developer, a Chicago design firm, a local architect of record and a Chicago construction manager, with no national players on the job.

Project Team & Details