All over Chicago, wrecking balls and demolition crews are chipping away at the Chicago Housing Authority’s high-rise apartment buildings.
But in the hot real estate market of the Near South Side, workers are starting to renovate the four high-rises in CHA’s Raymond M. Hilliard Center, near Cermak Road and State Street, which will be preserved as a mixed-income apartment complex.
The work is part of the CHA’s $1.6 billion, 10-year plan to replace high-rise apartment complexes for low-income residents with mixed-income developments. Hilliard is the first of seven complexes where rehab and construction work will begin in the next year, officials said.
“By breaking ground on the rehabilitation of this project, we are breaking from the past and offering concrete proof that we can reverse the sad legacy of public housing in this city,” said CHA chief Terry Peterson, in a news conference kicking off the work Wednesday.
The Hilliard complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, as part of the preparation for its renovation. It was designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg, whose other buildings include Marina City, at 300 N. State St., and River City, at 800 S. Wells St. The CHA complex resembles those other buildings with its curved designs.
Of the CHA’s buildings over eight stories tall, 53 are being torn down because they are too dilapidated to be rehabbed under standards set by a 1996 federal law. Other than senior citizen buildings, only the high-rises at Hilliard were considered sound enough to be saved.
Goldberg told the Tribune in 1985 that when Hilliard was built in the 1960s, government officials thought it was “too good” for the poor families slated to live there. It includes two senior citizen buildings and two buildings designed for families. The complex long has been known as the least troubled of the CHA’s high-rise developments, though it has suffered much of the same physical neglect as other, larger CHA complexes.
On Wednesday, residents said they look forward to Hilliard fulfilling its original promise. “It has always been my prayer that Hilliard become the showplace that it once was,” said Maner Wiley, president of the complex’s CHA local advisory council.
The almost $100 million plan, financed with a mix of private and taxpayer money, will reconfigure the 710 units in the four buildings–only 200 of which are occupied–into 654 apartments, a little fewer than half for public housing residents and the rest rented below market price. Renovations at 2031 S. Clark St., one of the family buildings, and 2111 S. Clark St., one of the senior buildings, should be done by the end of next year, with all work finished within four years, Peterson said.
The work is being done by Holsten Real Estate Development Corp., which specializes in affordable housing. .
