Fiber optic cables bringing high-speed Internet access into homes and businesses. A new commuter train station linked to city transit. Retail shops and townhouses.
Amenities at a trendy new North Side development? No, these proposals are part of private-sector investors’ hopes for transforming the area where 22 hulking high-rises stand along a blighted State Street corridor.
Developers vying for a chance to overhaul some of the bleakest public housing in the nation will find out Tuesday whether they will play the lead role in remaking the Robert Taylor Homes and Stateway Gardens complexes.
But much remains unclear about Chicago Housing Authority plans to tear down the crumbling high-rises and build mixed-income communities in their wake, such as how many poor families will be allowed to return to the neighborhood they may be forced to leave.
And as the CHA faces spring deadlines for federal grant applications aimed at bringing $105 million to the city’s public housing rehabilitation efforts, plans have yet to be drawn up and costs calculated for the rebirth of the South Side neighborhoods.
CHA officials say their board’s selection this week of master developers for the Taylor and Stateway projects–as well as for the Rockwell Gardens complex on the West Side–will kick off formal planning and financing activities.
“There’s not a lot of time,” said Valerie Piper, director of finance and policy for the CHA’s development office. “But what you can do is get to a pretty solid proposal.”
Even with the looming deadline, CHA officials say they have sought and will continue to seek public input in the remake of the South Side corridor, on State Street from 36th to 54th Streets.
This part of the city–for years synonymous with the failure of large-scale public housing and the rule of gangs–has attracted few investors, even as a development boom took over in other areas.
“The Stateway community has been abandoned for too long,” said Francine Washington, president of the tenants’ organization at Stateway and a member of the advisory panel that evaluated developer applications. “Now everyone is coming to the trough.”
The promise of public dollars now is a big lure.
“Clearly, the city and the CHA are committed to this redevelopment process,” said Stephen Porras, vice president of LR Development Co., an applicant for the redevelopment of Robert Taylor. “That has sent a very strong signal to the business community.”
The State Street corridor project comes as demolition and new construction are well under way at the CHA’s Cabrini-Green complex on the Near North Side. That project began amid much controversy, with public housing tenants who were facing displacement suing the city for more say in how their community was to be rebuilt. With legal hurdles cleared, demolition at Cabrini resumed just before Christmas.
Controversy so far has been averted in the rehab along State Street, where about 1,800 families live.
“The easy part is over; now we get down to the crunch, which is the hard part, to come up with the ultimate plan,” Washington said.
One potentially contentious issue will be the development’s mix of market-rate, affordable and public housing.
“The main challenge as far as I see is how do you maximize the number of units for public housing families and at the same time create a viable community,” said Paul Fischer, a professor of politics at Lake Forest College and an expert on public housing.
Relocation is another possible stumbling block. The CHA has promised that all displaced families will be relocated within the remaining public housing system or given a Section 8 voucher, which subsidizes rents on the private market. But demolition of public housing continues, and Steven Dailey, a housing associate with the Metropolitan Planning Council, said finding an affordable apartment outside the projects–even a subsidized one–may not be easy.
“There’s a tight market, so we wonder how the private market is going to absorb the influx of some of these families,” he said.
CHA officials would not release a list of firms that have submitted proposals. But at least four developers have weighed in on remaking Stateway, Taylor or both.
“This is a truly unique site,” said Don Samuelson, president of DSSA Management, current manager of Stateway Gardens and a candidate to lead the redevelopment of that site. His team includes former CHA Executive Director Joseph Shuldiner.
Samuelson called for a new Metra station for the area to link up with the Chicago Transit Authority at 35th Street near the Dan Ryan. The station could include a transit center with retail and other convenience services for commuters, he said.
In addition to creating better housing, he said, he also hopes to take advantage of fiber optic cables already running along the train tracks, which he called a “superhighway with no off-ramp.” Those fiber optic connections could join residential buildings, community institutions and businesses, he said.
Thomas Samuels, executive vice president of Higgins Development Partners, also said the project will need to focus on more than just housing to succeed.
“From our perspective, the mixed-income housing developments don’t stand on their own unless they’re supported by job opportunities and service support systems, and, frankly, service retail,” said Samuels, whose firm has applied to work on the corridor project. His development team also includes the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Like other developers seeking to work on the project, Richard Shields, principal of Mesa Development, which is a member of the Stateway Associates team, said planning should involve current tenants, churches and community organizations. “There are residents already there. We have a built-in market,” Shields said.
His group includes the Davis Group, a development firm that has done several South Side projects, and William Moorehead and Associates, the manager of the Robert Taylor Homes.
