The University builds for itself. The College helps others build.
But the real winners are the communities surrounding North Park College and Northeastern Illinois University.
Both Albany Park and Hollywood Park have benefited tremendously from the unique, stabilizing force provided by these two neighboring institutions of higher education, community leaders say.
In the last 30 years, since the old Chicago Teacher`s College evolved into Northeastern, the university has built approximately $150 million worth of buildings on its 67 acres at Bryn Mawr and St. Louis Avenues.
Around the same time, North Park College and Swedish Covenant Hospital, located less than a mile apart on West Foster Avenue, combined forces with Albany Bank and Trust Co. and the Hollywood North Park Improvement Association to help create the North River Commission. The North River Commission was charged with spearheading residential rehabilitation and commercial redevelopment in the area.
According to the commission`s executive director, Joe Cicero, the civic organization has helped create more than $114 million worth of real estate improvements since 1975.
”The purpose of forming this commission was to maintain the neighborhood in a stable condition, especially around the college. Folks saw the deterioration and saw the merit in what we do,” Cicero said.
Zenos Hawkinson, commission president and a professor emeritus at North Park, said the commission faced several challenges, including a one-third vacant Lawrence Avenue and a population that had changed from predominantly Swedish and Jewish to African-American, Hispanic and Asian.
”I`ve seen the changes for good and bad because I live close by and I`ve always lived close by,” said Hawkinson. ”I`ve been involved (with the commission) since the beginning. About 10 years ago the college was offered land in Grayslake for a new permanent site. But they decided to stay, and the decision was based on a lot of our work and what we`ve accomplished with the college`s help.”
”We`ve been able to produce 2,833 permanent service jobs and 4,121 temporary construction jobs in 30 years. These jobs have created annual income of $45 million for the neighborhood, with a return to the investor of some $20 million, or 17 percent on his investment. Our activity returns $14 million in taxes and we`ve created 1,281 new or rehabbed units for low-income families,” Cicero added.
Robert Gecht, president of Albany Bank and Trust Co., 3400 W. Lawrence Ave., said North Park`s decision to stay deeply affected the tenor of the community.
”They are one of the anchors of this community. All you have to do is look around the area and see the properties it owns are well-maintained with young students and young residents. These people have made a commitment to the community and they are the ones who bring life to a community,” said Gecht, whose bank has a representative on the North River Commission.
It is apparent that North Park College is closely involved with the workings of the North River Commission and its subsidiary organization, LADCOR (Lawrence Avenue Development Corp.). Many college employees live in the neighborhood and donate time to events and endless board meetings.
They`ve been highly successful stabilizing and improving the neighborhood, according to Mary Marubio, chairman of the board of the Hollywood North Park Improvement Association. One of the most fruitful aspects of the commission has been its ability to bring together entrepreneurs and rehabbers with the necessary financing.
The commission`s $500,000 annual budget covers 12 employees, with at least half going into the development budget.
”We try to throw as much resource at a project to get someone to bite,” Cicero explained. ”If you take the typical deal, say a 32-flat multifamily building, we will work with the buyer, help them find a financing package and perhaps some federal funds if they agree to rent to low- and middle-income families for 10 to 15 years.”
The commission`s force is felt in other areas as well. Cicero and Hawkinson say they are most proud of the conversion of the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium into North Park Village, 5801 N. Pulaski Rd., with 500 units of low-cost senior housing, a 53-acre nature center, a 27-acre park, a health center, a school for trainably mentally handicapped children and a major recycling center. And there is a proposal before the department of planning for the American Indian community to rehab an old cafeteria building on the site into a cultural center and museum.
In late July, LADCOR presided over the grand opening of Kimball Plaza, a $2 million shopping center at Lawrence and Kimball Avenues that replaced two rundown commercial buildings with 10 new minority-owned businesses and 60 new jobs.
”We`re bringing Lawrence Avenue back to health and we`re extremely proud of that,” Cicero said.
The commission has also been involved with the multimillion-dollar Chicago River Trail, a 15-acre project that will stretch for several miles along the North Branch of the Chicago River.
”We knew from our studies that we had the least amount of park space per acre of any place in the city. The river has always been used as a municipal sewer and we had a problem with gangs hanging out there. This project will take four to five years and $7 million to $8 million to complete, but it will provide everyone in the neighborhood with more recreational space,” Cicero noted.
North Park, with its 100 years of tradition and residential students, has always approached its civic responsibilities with private resources. But being a public university means nearby Northeastern Illinois has almost no funds with which to foster development outside its gates.
What it can and does offer the community are its physical and personal resources.
Marubio says Northeastern offers space for association meetings and help in publishing their community newsletter.
Sheila Rotman, assistant director of university relations and a lifelong resident of the community, says in addition to working with Marubio, she also sits on the North River Commission board.
”They used to call this the `3-D corner`: death, disease and delinquency. We had the cemeteries, the tuberculosis sanitarium and the home for truant children,” said Marti Sladek, director of university relations.
”Our main interaction with the community is that we`ve become a resource for civic groups. We provide them with advice, consulting services, rooms for their meetings and help with their publications. We also have a program where neighborhood residents can audit our classes for free,” she noted.
”On the other hand, we`re about finished with our development on our acreage. The only thing we`re planning is to rehab the old gymnasium into a new fine arts center. And that will happen only when about $18 million in financing is approved by the state,” Sladek said.
But as Northeastern has grown, so has the neighborhood`s parking problem. In the mid-1970s, the North River Commission lobbied City Hall and got a permit parking ordinance that would regulate the neighborhood surrounding the university.
Parking again became an issue when last December City Hall turned three rooms at North Park Village into a parking ticket payment center.
”The parking payment center mobilized thousands of people and the college and university were right in the middle of it all. . . .” Cicero recalled.
”What the city saw was a reflecton of the community will that this center was inappropriate and would hurt uses already created and working well. So after about four weeks, the mayor said he had changed his mind and put the payment center into a commercial mall on Addison across the street from Lane Tech High School,” he added.
Northeastern, the only public university in the north metro area, will continue to expand off-campus.
Current satellite facilities include the Center for Inner City Studies at 700 E. Oakwood Blvd., El Centro de Recursos Educativos at 3119 N. Pulaski Rd., the Chicago Teacher`s Center at 770 N. Halsted St. and the Clarbrook Center in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows.
But for Northeastern, off-site development will depend heavily on monetary resources provided by the state. The last investment in off-site locations was a modest $60,000 two years ago.
Still, Northeastern and North Park have proved to be assets to a neighborhood somewhat stung by the pressures of urban problems. There are gangs, and not enough parking, Cicero says, but these educational facilities have stabilized an area that has absorbed one wave after another of ethnic minorities.
”This community would have been a ghost park over there without them. The neighborhood has accepted both schools rather quickly and they have helped the neighborhood stabilize,” said Ald. Anthony Laurino (45th), who during his eight terms in City Hall has witnessed this neighborhood`s changes.
”Buildings sell within a week of going on the market and for very good prices.”
