West Sider Clifton Cooper remembers “there was time when we couldn’t get developers to cross Western Avenue. They didn’t see potential” in his neighborhood, known for its namesake Garfield Park and Conservatory, which have attracted visitors from outside the neighborhood.
Now the blocks immediately surrounding the park and conservatory, refurbished by the Chicago Park District, are attracting developers and home buyers.
As president of the East Garfield Park Coalition, Cooper consults with developers building in the area, he said in an interview this month.
Roughly 30 percent of the land on blocks immediately around Garfield Park are vacant, according to Ald. Ed Smith (28th), who says that since 1994 when the Chicago Park District began making improvements to the 185-acre park, its lagoon, conservatory and surrounding streets, developer investment has steadily increased.
“We are now getting to a point where we can be selective,” Smith said in an interview at City Hall earlier this month. “We are trying to use those improvements, and improvements to [Washington and Warren Boulevards], and to the Green Line station as a catalyst that will draw a mix of development to the area. We are looking for mixed-income and commercial projects to go up on blocks around the conservatory,” Smith said. The CTA’s “L” station was relocated to Central Park Avenue and Lake Street so passengers can walk to the conservatory.
The city owns most of the vacant lots in the area, Smith said. “Because of the improvements to the Green Line, which is near Washington and Warren Boulevards, the vacant lots on those two streets are now all earmarked for development,” Smith said.
Developer Mike Clarke has been building residential projects in the area for the last four years. “That neighborhood is one of best kept secrets in city,” said the president of Clarke Construction LLC. “East Garfield is a little like Bronzeville,” he said. “It’s been put down for so long and now it is coming back.”
Clarke recalls how he got into the neighborhood. “A gentleman who lived in the area was moving to back to Tennessee and approached me about buying his land. A woman told me, `Don’t buy there, that area is rough,'” he said. Since then Clarke has built several condo projects that sold out quickly, and a 50-unit apartment building.
Clarke has scheduled spring construction for the 33-unit Homes of East Garfield, on Washington and Warren between Central Park and Western Avenues. Sixteen of the single-family homes and 2-flats will be built under the Chicago Department of Housing’s New Homes for Chicago Program. He plans to sell the affordable homes for $190,000 to $240,000, with market-rate homes starting near $300,000.
“In spring we will also start building a 7-unit condo building at 3301 Washington Blvd., [starting at $220,000], and six townhouses at Warren Boulevard and Sacramento Avenue that will start at $325,000,” Clarke said.
The ambience of Washington Boulevard and the improvements to the park and conservatory drew Chicago developer Herb Eck to the area. “We think all those improvements are an indication that things are changing in the area for the better,” he said. He and partner Michael Silver, a developer and builder with Chicago-based In/Site Architecture, are building Washington on the Park, a development of three-flats at 3315-25 W. Washington.
Like Clarke, Eck and Silver worked closely with Cooper and members of the East Garfield Coalition. The coalition pushes for developments that complement the historic masonry housing stock that survived the decades of under-investment, Cooper said. “We really want single-family houses and townhouses to go up on these vacant lots, but if they want to build condos. We try to get them to at least build those condos in a building that looks like a single-family residence,” Cooper said.
Silver designed buildings “that look like single-family homes, 3 1/2-story masonry buildings with mansard roofs,” Eck said. “Each building will have a duplex unit on the first floor and basement level, and simplex units on the second and third floors.” Pre-construction prices start at $249,900 and $274,900, Eck said.
At Conservatory Manor, 102 N. Hamlin Ave., a firm headed by Chicago developer Bernard Berry is converting a 41-unit single-room-occupancy hotel into 19 condos. The 2- and 3-bedroom condos are being sold for $120,000 to $279,000.
Ald. Smith expects that conservatory traffic will create momentum for economic development — business for mom-and-pop shops that he hopes will open up on scattered lots throughout the neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the attention has increased area land value. “I think that in the last four years that I have been building in this neighborhood,” Clarke said, “the cost of vacant land has gone up about 35 percent.”
