The movie theater at Church Street Plaza, shown under its earlier Century name Photo: Ndshankar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Church Street Plaza, the downtown Evanston retail block home to a movie theater and an indoor trampoline park, was sold in 2025 to Continuum Development for $31.2 million. The buyer arrived with a plan already on the table: a 27-story apartment tower on the plaza’s northern end.
What was sold
According to Real Estate Business, the property at 900-950 N. Church St. covers a full city block and totals 144,833 square feet. It was 98 percent leased at the time of sale. Tenants include a 12-screen AMC theater and a Sky Zone, along with other shops and restaurants. The report says the complex was built in 2000 and redeveloped in 2023, and it sits close to CTA and Metra rail lines, about a half mile from Northwestern University.
The Real Deal reported that Continuum financed the purchase with a $26.5 million loan from T2 Capital. The seller was not named in the sale report. Earlier coverage by Chicago YIMBY identified GW Properties as the plaza’s owner when the tower was first floated.
The tower idea at Clark and Maple
The development proposal predates the sale. In January 2025, the Daily Northwestern reported on a joint venture of Luxury Living and Continuum to replace the north end of the plaza with a 27-story, 358-unit building. Antunovich Associates is the architect. Chicago YIMBY places the site at 900 Clark St., at the corner of Maple Avenue.
The plan would remove a Chili’s, a pet-care business called Dogtopia, and five of the AMC screens. Chili’s would be replaced with roughly 2,900 square feet of ground-floor retail. The developers proposed an extra 20 percent of inclusionary units beyond what the city requires, leased about 75 parking spaces, and said the building would aim for Green Globes certification with all-electric units. They said they expected strong demand from Northwestern students.
The project still needs to go through the city’s entitlement process, including Land Use Commission hearings. The Real Deal put the cost at about $130 million and said Continuum would seek separate construction financing. As of the 2025 reporting I reviewed, approval was pending, and I found no construction timeline.
Paul Zalmezak, Evanston’s economic development manager, told the Daily Northwestern that losing the AMC screens would likely cut operating costs, noting that movie theater operators nationally were struggling to attract patrons. Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma of the 4th Ward called the project a promising step for the downtown economy, saying more residents would help local businesses.
A block the city once invested in
Chicago YIMBY’s background on the site says the plaza was designed by the California firm ELS and that the city put nearly $35 million into it. The original concept included a hotel, a 21-screen theater and a 200-unit residential tower called Optima. What was built was a smaller version of that vision, centered on the theater and retail.
That history matters to the current proposal. The block is one the city helped create to draw activity downtown, and the new owner wants to add housing to it. If the tower is approved, the plaza would shift from a destination for entertainment to one that also houses several hundred households.
Sources: Real Estate Business, The Real Deal, the Daily Northwestern and Chicago YIMBY, 2024 and 2025.
Thomas Brennan covers property taxes, real estate, transit and the local economy for The Evanston Edge.
