A renovation permit was issued last week by the City of Chicago to turn an empty theater complex in the Homan Square neighborhood into an indoor soccer field and sports facility. The approval allows Chicago Sports, Inc to transform the former Cinemas Entertainment multi-plex in Lawndale Plaza at 3330 West Roosevelt Road. The application for the permit was filed on October 2 of last year, and permission was granted on April 11, a wait of 191 days. The permit indicates a reported construction cost of just $120,000.
Lawndale Plaza is in red. The theater space is in blue. Image via Google Maps
Cinemas 10 at this location closed in 2018 following a long saga of openings and temporary closings. Details are scant for what the new sports facility will include. No timeline is known for when work will begin and finish, but renovating 50,000 square feet of movie complex into a soccer field would seem to take a decent amount of time. Aleksandr Vaysman is named as the architect of record, and Soberanis, Inc of Berwyn will be the general contractor.
Nearby bus stops, via Google Maps. The soccer field site is enclosed in the red square.
Lawndale Plaza is located on Roosevelt Road between Kedzie and Homan Avenues. There is an enormous surface parking lot providing parking for the array of businesses, but it is also served by three stops for the CTA’s Route 12 Roosevelt bus. The north-south running Route 82 Kimball-Homan and Route 52 Kedzie bus also stop at the plaza. The Kedzie-Homan Blue Line elevated train station is just over half a mile north, with the 52 and 82 buses available to connect to the soccer field.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
This could be a really great way to salvage of a commercial P.of S. retail development. Amazing how almost all shopping centers lack any redeeming qualities.