Abby Miller

Abby Miller reports on how real estate development, housing policy and major projects reshape neighborhoods, emphasizing who benefits and who is left out of the transformation. She is a money reporter covering development at the Chicago Sun-Times, with expertise in housing, construction and large-scale commercial projects. Her coverage stands out for pairing detailed project and program numbers with the perspectives of residents, advocates, developers and officials across the city.

South and West Side housing initiatives

Miller devotes consistent attention to public and private efforts aimed at bringing new housing to long-disinvested areas on the South and West sides.

In her reporting on the Missing Middle Infill Housing program, she follows developers turning vacant city-owned lots into two-flats and other small-scale homes, explaining how $1 land sales and construction assistance of $150,000 per unit are intended to rebuild the local housing stock. She tracks the program’s pipeline of more than 300 homes and highlights specific projects, such as a four-lot development in West Garfield Park, to show how policy translates into roofs and doors on individual blocks.

Her coverage of equitable transit-oriented development looks at how a city framework has pushed more projects near transit in the South and West sides, while making clear how much work remains. In that work, she lays out the scale of funding flowing to mixed-use projects, including community spaces in North Lawndale and early childhood centers in Englewood, and notes that more than 100 ETOD projects are in the pipeline.

She uses those examples to show how transportation, land use and housing policy meet on specific corners and corridors, rather than treating ETOD as an abstract planning term.

Beyond citywide programs, Miller reports on neighborhood-level planning and preservation, including a Garfield Ridge resident’s effort to create a community framework plan for the area.

She also covers proposals to reuse or protect notable properties, such as plans to turn Evanston’s Harley Clarke Mansion into a community hub with amenities like a coffee shop and restaurant, tying historic preservation debates back to everyday uses. Across these pieces, she returns to the question of whether new housing and community spaces serve existing residents or invite a different future for the blocks in question.

Office-to-residential conversions and the Loop

Miller closely follows the conversion of aging office buildings into housing, treating those projects as a lens on both the real estate market and downtown recovery. In River North, she reports on a former Salesforce office being turned into apartments, detailing construction timelines, project costs around $64.5 million and rental ranges starting near $2,300 for studios and larger units.

She explains how developers see residential use as the most viable option in the current office landscape and notes that the project is one of several office-to-residential conversions underway in the city.

Her work on Bellwether Residences shows how an office-to-residential conversion fits into the city’s La Salle Street Corridor Revitalization program, which aims to add more housing to the Loop. She describes the building’s opening as a milestone for that initiative, connecting a single conversion to the broader policy push to reimagine the central business district.

In parallel, her reporting on Loop retail and office vacancy, including stories on efforts to make State Street “a great street” again and on record-high office vacancy rates, tracks how more residents and different kinds of tenants could change the district’s economics.

By consistently including vacancy statistics, square footage figures and tenant mixes, Miller makes clear how individual leases and conversions feed into the larger question of what kind of downtown is emerging after years of disruption.

Community fights over development and demolition

A recurring thread in Miller’s coverage is the tension between new infrastructure and existing communities, especially when utility, religious or corporate projects collide with neighborhood priorities. Her story on Lincoln Park residents organizing against a planned ComEd substation shows how community coalitions propose alternate sites and push for housing instead of infrastructure on a one-acre parcel, documenting the strategy and message behind a local rally. She reports the coalition’s view that the site should deliver homes, not just grid reliability, and frames the dispute as part of a broader struggle over scarce urban land.

In Lake View, she covers the demolition of the House of the Good Shepherd women’s shelter as the Cubs pursue an expansion of their nearby Camry parking lot, specifying the number of new parking spaces sought and the approvals still needed from city planning bodies. That piece connects a high-profile sports franchise’s plans to the loss of a social service institution and to the city commission process that can either slow or greenlight such changes.

In another story, she follows a battle over Emanuel Congregation’s proposed new lakefront home, outlining how housing advocates praise the additional units while some residents and businesses call for stronger lakefront protections.

Her work on major mixed-use developments reinforces this theme. Coverage of West Loop towers that bring the neighborhood its first Aldi, of the long-delayed 62-acre site known as The 78, and of the luxury McDonald’s Park experience for Chicago Fire fans all underscores how new retail, stadiums and amenities remake neighborhoods and raise questions about access and price. Across these stories, Miller keeps both the project details and the community reactions in view, rather than treating development solely as a business story.

Housing market pressures and policy responses

Miller also writes data-heavy pieces on the broader housing market, focusing on affordability, supply constraints and economic headwinds. In her reporting on affordability defining the housing market, she notes that home sales in the greater region rose slightly while a dwindling number of listings and steady demand tightened competition among buyers.

She cites trade association figures showing changes in monthly and annual sales, using those numbers to explain why prices and bidding dynamics are shifting.

Her work on tariffs and recession fears examines how higher material costs and potential interest rate spikes could further dampen the housing market, including estimates that tariffs could add nearly $10,900 to the cost of a home. By pairing expert commentary with quantified impacts, she shows how national policy decisions filter down to individual buyers and builders. In another strand, she covers litigation such as Housing Action Illinois’ lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over efforts to claw back tens of millions of dollars in housing counseling funding, making clear what services are at stake when such money is threatened.

Across these market and policy stories, Miller brings together economic data, regulatory moves and nonprofit perspectives, presenting housing not just as a set of prices but as a system shaped by law, finance and advocacy.