“The Archdiocese of Chicago has put up for sale a Humboldt Park property it has owned since the 1890s, and a strong housing market in the neighborhood suggests it could become a sizable new residential development site.
“The former St. Mark’s parish property, on Campbell Street between Thomas and Cortez streets, went up for sale July 29 with an asking price of $6.75 million. On the site now are a greystone built before 1900 and used as the rectory, or priest’s housing, a three-story red brick school built in 1906 and a low-slung modernist church built in 1963.
“Rich Anselmo and Pasquale Recchia, agents at @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, are representing the property but deferred to the archdiocese for comment.
“Eric Wollan, the chief capital assets officer for the archdiocese, said the church ‘would be open to vetting offers for any uses’ of the buildings as it does with all the former parish buildings it sells. He added it’s likely that ‘in this location there would be a higher than normal possibility that it would be redeveloped into residential.’
“That was the case with the former Santa Maria Addolorata Church, about 2 miles away on North Ada Street in Noble Square. Put up for sale at $3 million in March, the property attracted multiple bids, all of them proposing to build new single-family homes, Anselmo told Crain’s in April. The sale has not closed yet, as it’s under review by archdiocese officials.
“In recent years, several other former church properties, both Catholic and from other denominations, have gone residential as declining attendance at religious services makes repurposing them under another faith less likely.
“While no offers for St. Mark’s have been announced yet, the hot market for housing in Humboldt Park makes the site, about 1.1 acres or the equivalent of 15 standard city lots, seem like a viable candidate for new homes.
“Wollan said the archdiocese stipulates that a church building must continue to be used as sacred space or some similar use. That means if the site is sold to a residential developer, the church building would be headed toward demolition. The former St. Mark’s church building occupies much of the site’s north half, which would all be opened up for construction if it’s demolished.
“St. Mark’s parish was founded in 1894, and the oldest building on the property, a greystone on Campbell, was built in the first few years, according to Wollan’s records. The archdiocese closed St Mark’s in 2022. A charter school, Esmeralda Santiago, is one of the schools that the Acero network planned to shut down this year but got a reprieve from the Board of Education for the 2025-26 school year.” (Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 8/1/25)
Read the full story at Crain’s Chicago Business
- Three-building Humboldt Park church site a likely candidate for residential use, Dennis Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 8/1/25
- Archdiocese Lists Humboldt Park’s St. Mark Parish For Sale For $6.7 Million; The parish, which was closed in 2022 and served Latinos and Puerto Ricans in the area, was founded in 1894. Its oldest building is a greystone on Campbell, Ariel Parrella-Aureli, Block Club Chicago, 8/19/25
- St. Mark’s Campus, 2510 W. Cortez Avenue Listing