CHICAGO — A plan to redevelop the site of the long-closed U.S. Steel plant on the south lakefront here is ambitious even in a city whose attitude has long been Daniel Burnham’s maxim, “Make no little plans.”

The about 470-acre South Works site juts into Lake Michigan and has dazzling views of downtown nine miles to the north. The master plan, by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, calls for 13,575 market rate and affordable homes to serve 50,000 new residents, 17.5 million square feet of retail and commercial space, a high school and a marina with 1,500 slips, to be built in phases over the next 30 years. The estimated cost is $4 billion.

The project took a major step forward in September when the city awarded it a $98 million tax increment financing grant that will be used to build infrastructure for the development’s first phase. This followed a decision by the city last spring to approve the master plan.

“The scale of the project is extraordinary,” said Chris Raguso, who recently left her position as acting commissioner of the city’s Department of Community Development to become Mayor Richard M. Daley’s deputy chief of staff. “The fact that anybody in this economy still wants to take a shot at developing a site that is basically a landfill and is basing the development on retail and housing is also extraordinary.”