Search "new construction Highland Park" this month and you will find a $2.5 million single-family home going up on the site of a demolished elementary school, a condo penthouse asking north of $3.7 million in a building still working its way through construction, and word of 227 townhomes planned for a 28-acre lot where a paper cup factory used to sit. All three are real. All three are currently listed under the same search term. And they have almost nothing to do with each other.
That matters if you are comparing Highland Park to other North Shore towns and trying to figure out what "new construction pricing" actually means here. The honest answer is that there is no single new-construction market in Highland Park this year. There are three, aimed at three different buyers, moving at three different speeds, and any price-per-square-foot figure you see quoted for the town as a whole is probably an average of numbers that were never meant to sit next to each other.
The Lot Behind the Old School
The most visible of the three is The Lincoln Collection, nine single-family homes going up on the former Lincoln School site in East Highland Park. The homes run roughly 5,400 to 5,500 square feet including garage and finished basement space, six bedrooms, five or six bathrooms, and a listing price of $2.5 million. The developer, HP Lincoln LLC, is a joint venture between Kiferbaum Development Group and Gold Lion Ventures, a Chicago and Santa Barbara based family office whose principals have done a string of projects together across residential, hospitality, and mixed-use real estate.
The location is doing real work here. Individual homesites sit within walking distance of the Ravinia Metra station, Ravinia Festival grounds, Rosewood Beach, downtown Highland Park, and Brown Park's tennis and pickleball courts. That combination of new construction and walkable East Highland Park geography is rare. Most of the town's teardown-and-rebuild activity happens lot by lot on streets that were already built out decades ago. A nine-home cluster on a former institutional site is a different animal, and it is why brokers marketing the project keep repeating some version of the same line: brand-new construction in an established North Shore location does not come up often. Homes are scheduled to deliver between this summer and early fall.
The Building That Keeps Selling Out
The second story belongs to Fulton Developers, which has now built seven projects in Highland Park and has a habit of selling out before the concrete cures. Two earlier buildings, Park Sheridan and the Wolbright, sold through their inventory, including penthouses that closed in the same $3.7 million range the company is now targeting again with its next project, the Walton.
The Walton is planned as a 19-unit building, several units expected to top $1 million and at least three penthouses priced above $3.7 million, with two units set aside as affordable housing. Rising construction costs could push the top-end pricing closer to $4 million, according to Fulton principal Mark Muller, who has said the firm keeps finding demand from North Shore buyers who would rather stay local than buy a comparable unit downtown. As of last fall the company was targeting a spring 2026 construction start.
What makes this pipeline different from the Lincoln Collection is the buyer it is built for. These are not families moving up into more square footage. They are downsizers and empty nesters who want ground-floor amenities, low-maintenance living, and a Highland Park address without the yard. The fact that Fulton has now sold through two buildings at this price point before starting a third tells you the demand is not a one-time event. It is a repeatable pattern in a town most buyers still associate with single-family estates.
227 Homes Where Paper Cups Used to Be Made
The third pipeline is the one most likely to actually move the town's supply numbers, and it looks nothing like the other two. Habitat Company and M/I Homes are partnering on a 227-unit townhome development on the 28-acre former Solo Cup manufacturing site at 1700 Old Deerfield Road, a property that had sat vacant since 2008. The Highland Park City Council approved the project, called The Bowery of Highland Park, unanimously in February 2026, after the developers agreed to drop a contested pedestrian crosswalk and widen a buffer zone near a nearby restaurant in response to resident concerns. City leaders have called it the largest housing project the village has approved in generations.
The land itself has a history worth noting. Red Cup Land Company, an entity affiliated with Newsweb, paid $6.2 million for the site in 2012 and had previously proposed building two industrial warehouses there, a plan the city rejected in 2023. The residential proposal that followed is what finally got approved. Habitat and M/I Homes were planning to close on the land this spring, with groundbreaking expected before the end of 2026 and an 18 to 24 month buildout after that.
This is the pipeline built for volume, not exclusivity, and it is the one most likely to eventually show up in townwide price averages as ordinary, mid-market new construction rather than luxury inventory.
| Project | Units | Price Point | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Lincoln Collection | 9 single-family homes | $2.5M each | Under construction, delivering summer to early fall 2026 |
| The Walton (Fulton Developers) | 19 condo units | $1M to $3.7M+ | Targeted spring 2026 construction start |
| The Bowery of Highland Park | 227 townhomes | Not yet released | City-approved February 2026, groundbreaking expected later this year |
Why the Median Price You're Seeing Doesn't Mean Anything Yet
This is the part that trips up buyers comparing towns from a spreadsheet. Pull Highland Park's median home price from two different sources this year and you will get two different stories. Redfin's March 2026 data put the median sale price at $763,000, down 12.4 percent year over year, with homes selling in an average of 42 days compared to 56 the year before, and only 31 homes sold that month against 38 the prior March. Movoto's August 2026 numbers show a median listing price of $873,000, down 11 percent from the prior month and 10 percent from a year earlier, with a much faster median of 20 days on market.
Neither source is wrong. They are measuring different things: one tracks what actually closed last month in a market with a small enough sales count that a handful of transactions can swing the median by six figures, the other tracks what sellers are currently asking. Zoom into a single pocket and the swings get even more dramatic. Highland Park Acres, a specific submarket within town, posted a median sale price of $1.6 million over the three months ending March 2026, up 79.5 percent from the same period a year earlier. That is not a neighborhood suddenly worth twice as much. It is a thin sample where a few high-value closings reset the number entirely.
Now add three unrelated new-construction pipelines injecting inventory at $825,000, $2.5 million, and somewhere north of $3.7 million into the same small town in the same year, and you can see why a single "new construction price per square foot" figure for Highland Park is close to meaningless. It depends entirely on which pipeline supplied the comp. As of this summer, East Highland Park itself had only two new construction homes listed for sale, which tells you how little of this activity has actually reached the open market yet. Most of what is coming is still under construction or still working through city approval.
Which Pipeline Actually Matches Your Budget
If you are shopping the $700,000 to $900,000 range, none of these three projects are currently your comp. You are competing against resale inventory, and the townwide numbers from Redfin and Movoto are a reasonable starting point, with the caveat that Highland Park's small monthly sales volume means those medians move around more than a larger suburb's would.
If you are looking in the $2 million to $2.5 million range for a single-family home with real square footage and a walkable East Highland Park location, the Lincoln Collection is the only current new-construction comp in that lane, and it is a small, finite supply of nine homes.
If you want low-maintenance luxury living without the yard and you are comfortable in the $1 million to $4 million condo range, Fulton's track record with Park Sheridan and the Wolbright suggests the Walton will move the same way once it delivers.
And if you are watching the town for signs of broader supply relief, The Bowery of Highland Park is the project to track, though pricing has not been released and the timeline runs well into 2027 and beyond once groundbreaking happens.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Tour
Is new construction in Highland Park always more expensive per square foot than a renovated older home? Not necessarily. It depends on which pipeline you are comparing against. A Lincoln Collection home and a future Bowery townhome will land in completely different per-square-foot territory even though both are technically new construction delivered in the same year.
Should I wait for one of these projects to deliver instead of buying resale now? That depends on your timeline and price point. The Lincoln Collection is closest to done. The Walton is earlier in its build cycle. The Bowery is the furthest out and the least certain on pricing. Waiting only makes sense if your budget and needs line up with one specific pipeline.
Why do Redfin and Movoto show such different numbers for the same town? Redfin's figures reflect closed sales from the prior month. Movoto's reflect current asking prices. In a market as small as Highland Park, a handful of transactions can shift either number meaningfully, which is why a single month's snapshot should never be read as the whole story.
Highland Park's new-construction story is genuinely three separate stories this year, and the right one for you depends on budget, timeline, and how much you value a walkable East Highland Park address versus low-maintenance condo living versus simply getting into the town at all. If you want a clear read on which pipeline actually fits your search, and what it will take to compete for a home in whichever one you land on, The Dickstein Group can walk you through the current inventory in each lane. Request a private consultation and we will get specific about what your budget actually buys in Highland Park right now.
