Don`t call Wicker Park an emerging neighborhood.
”It`s not a changing neighborhood; it`s a neighborhood that has changed. It has arrived,” said John E. Roush, who moved to the Near Northwest Side neighborhood in 1984 when he and his wife were expecting their first child.
”I would say Wicker Park has turned the corner.”
Roush, a young executive with a Chicago sales promotion firm, and his wife are typical of the new entrants to the once-grand but more recently depressed neighborhood that abuts Humboldt Park, scene of the 1960s West Side riots. Wicker Park, part of a larger neighborhood known as West Town, is bounded roughly by Ashland, Western, North and Division.
Since the first ”pioneers” began re-entering the neighborhood about two decades ago, most of the Victorian mansions built before 1892 for the Columbian Exposition have been restored to their former elegance. A new wave of residents, the young urban professionals, began moving to the neighborhood during the past two years.
”The John Roushes, a young married couple, are typical of Wicker Park today,” said Lonn Frye of the Chicago architectural firm of Frye Gillan and Molinaro. Frye restored and lives in a 15-room mansion on Caton Street, just north of North Avenue, that he bought 13 years ago. Frye also owns five apartment buildings ranging from 4 to 14 flats in the neighborhood.
The neighborhood had picked up during the early 1970s but fell back somewhat until recently, Frye said. ”It was better when I moved in than it was five years ago,” he said.
Now most of the available buildings, especially in the large National Historic District designated in the center of the neighborhood, have been purchased and restored.
”We have entered what is called the last phase–the commercial phase–of a revitalization program,” said Catherine Caravette, a Realtor who has lived in the neighborhood for 10 years and is chairman of the Old Wicker Park Committee. The group of neighborhood activists has now focused its attention on attracting new and upscale businesses to the shopping districts, which include Milwaukee and North Avenues.
The West Town Center, a combination of new construction and renovation of the former Wieboldt store at Ashland and Milwaukee, has provided the anchor for development of a retail base beyond the greasy-spoon restaurants and low- grade shops that dotted the area.
”The shopping mall is the biggest anchor for miles,” Caravette said.
”It has really kicked our commercial (growth).”
The project began three years ago, with the first store opening in 1984. Today it includes a Jewel/Osco, a Zayre department store, a Radio Shack and numerous specialty shops.
Caravette said the Old Wicker Park Committee`s goal is a rejuvenated business district stretching along Milwaukee between Division and North.
”We`re trying to help the merchants upgrade,” she said.
Roush, also active with the neighborhood committee, said he expects little problem attracting new businesses.
”It`s a good location–only 7 minutes from the Loop by `el,` and we`ve got buses and the highway (Kennedy Expressway),” Roush said. ”We`ve got solid housing stock and it`s right in the middle of the direction urban development is going.”
Roush, a committee director in charge of neighborhood promotion, has drafted a letter aimed largely at specialty merchants in the Gold Coast, Lincoln Park and DePaul areas promising lower rents and higher profits. He pitches a consumer base of ”upscale professionals.”
The letter pledges assistance from the Old Wicker Park Committee in finding a building and negotiating an acceptable rent and, in some cases, negotiating a no-rent lease in return for renovation.
Caravette said that along with the commercial development, Wicker Park also is entering the new-construction phase.
”I would say we`re looking at 50 to 100 units in two to five years,”
Caravette said. ”It`s going to be needed; we`re entering our `yuppie` phase. ”Right now its renovate, renovate, and we still have some inventory left.”
Caravette said several developers, including her own BBC Realty, have plans for new construction, although no projects have begun. She said her company probably will begin by next spring with single-family homes and move into townhouses after that.
Even the Chicago Park District is getting on the Wicker Park bandwagon, and is building a new fieldhouse that will blend architecturally with the surroundings in the small, triangular park at Damen and Schiller that gave the neighborhood its name.
What all this means, Roush said, is that the days of buying a mansion for $30,000 are gone, although some good buys still remain.
”I don`t know that there are any fabulous deals there anymore,” Roush said. ”That`s not to say Wicker Park is a Lincoln Park, but I don`t think anyone wants it to be a Lincoln Park.”
Roush said are neighborhood provides a good mix of working class, artists and designers and professionals.
”We are trying to make it a nice, safe place to live,” Roush said. ”We still have a few shabby apartment buildings in the area, but we`re trying to work on that with the owners. If that doesn`t work, we`ll get them in
(Housing) Court.”
The rehabilitation of Wicker Park began with the mansions and other buildings surrounding the park. Since then, redevelopment has pushed to the west and the north.
Caravette said good deals are still available in the eastern, southern and western edges of Wicker Park.
”The neighborhood might still be a little fringy in parts, but the product we`re giving you and the price is unsurpassed,” Caravette said.
She said `shells` of good-sized homes can be bought for as little as $30,000 and can be turned into first-class residences for about $100,000.
Two- to four-flat apartment buildings can be purchased for $60,000 to $125,000, depending on the amount of renovation required.
As examples, she said a two-flat purchased for $60,000 would require about $30,000 in renovation while a three-flat purchased for $125,000 would require another $25,000 to $50,000 in work.
And the upswing in the Wicker Park market has brought in professional rehabbers who restore old buldings and sell them for $180,000 to $250,000, Caravette said.
Apartments also are available, Caravette said, with typical rents ranging from $400 to $1,200 a month.
The biggest beneficiaries of the surge in Wicker Park are the old-timers who moved in years ago and restored their homes with ”sweat equity”–doing most of the rehabilitation work themselves.
Homes purchased for under $100,000 5 or 10 years ago now command prices of $300,000 to $500,000, Caravette said.
Frye said he bought his home for $23,000 in 1973 and recently turned down an offer of $450,000.
Caravette added that even recent acquisitions have escalated in value by as much as 25 percent a year. In 1984, the average price of a home was around $60,000, she said. Today`s average for similar homes is about $95,000.
Roush said the owner of a small house across the street from his bought it for $100,000 last year and recently turned down a $135,000 offer. Very little work was done on the home, Roush said.
Caravette said one big difference in today`s Wicker Park rehabber is that he tends to contract out the renovation work instead of doing it himself.
”That sweat equity was in the days before yuppies,” Caravette said.
”Now, they figure their time is worth up to $100 an hour and they`d rather pay someone to do it.
”They work long hours, and they want their spare time to enjoy themselves and their new house.
”We`ve gone the full nine yards on renovations.”
Roush, who purchased his home, a mansion built in 1891, a couple of months before he moved in, combined sweat equity with professional work.
”It was 22 single-room apartments (a rooming house) with a sink in each room,” Roush said. ”I did most of the work myself.”
Roush said he bought the house for about $135,000 and put in $20,000 worth of material ”plus a lot of sweat.” The work is almost done, and he said it has yielded six rooms and a bathroom on the first floor, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a den on the second floor, a full basement with a laundry room and an attic. Work on a sun room is pending.
The house probably will be appraised at about $200,000, Roush said.
”When we were looking for a house, we looked all over the city,” Roush said. ”I clearly couldn`t afford Lincoln Park or Old Town. The best I could get was a one-bedroom townhouse. I looked in West DePaul, but all I could get was a very unexciting home for $135,000 that still needed a lot of work.”
Wicker Park residents concede that their area is perceived by outsiders as having a high crime rate and gang-related problems, but they say that isn`t true.
”I wouldn`t have moved my wife and child here if I thought it wasn`t safe,” Roush said. ”I was a little nervous about it when I moved in, but in the time since we`ve lived there I feel perfectly safe.
”The gangs tend to mess with themselves and no one else. The worst thing we`ve had on our block is a (car) window broken and a radio stolen. I`ve been told the personal crime rate is lower than Lincoln Park or the Gold Coast.”
Frye, who also owns apartment buildings in Lincoln Park agreed. He said his apartment buildings in Lincoln Park have a burglary as often as once every six months. He has not had any burglaries in his Wicker Park buildings.
But car break-ins are still a problem, he said, especially for visitors who stay with friends overnight and don`t have their cars equipped with alarms. He said youths come from nearby Humboldt Park during the early morning hours, break into a car and steal a tape deck. Tape decks are the only items the youths seem interested in.
Otherwise, Frye said, ”It`s a very quiet neighborhood. It`s a very green and peaceful neighborhood. Almost a boring neighborhood.”
The residents of Wicker Park will be showcasing their neighborhood from noon to 6 p.m. on Aug. 16 and 17 during the 10th Annual Wicker Park Greening Festival.
The festival will feature interior tours of selected mansions, entertainment, an antique show, a beer garden and a flower garden tour.
The festival got its name from the earlier residents who wanted to emphasize the rehabilitation of Wicker Park.
Now they want others to come to see that it has been done.
Said Caravette: ”Wicker Park has emerged. It`s there; it`s on the map.”
