A groundbreaking ceremony has been held for the second project of the city’s Missing Middle Infill Housing initiative in North Lawndale. Announced just over a year ago, the Lawndale sites are part of a larger initiative led by the city to redevelop vacant lots into affordable homes for local residents. This comes after another project already broke ground on seven two-flats.
Map of missing Middle Lawndale, Trumbull Collection (Cluster C)
Known as the Trumbull Collection, the project is being led by developer Westside Community Group. Plans call for the redevelopment of eight city lots located at various addresses on the 1600 to 1800 blocks of South Drake Avenue and South Trumbull Avenue near Douglass Park. Since their initial reveal, plans have slightly changed and grown in density.
Of the eight lots, seven will hold a single three-flat, with one of the lots being double-wide and hosting two three-flats instead. These will create a total of 27 residential units, an increase from the originally proposed two-flats from last year, which would have delivered 16 units instead. While layouts are unknown, we can expect family-sized units.
Rendering of Trumbull Collection via DPD
With the increase in density, the project cost has also increased from $5.6 million to $6.5 million. This has slightly lowered the overall per-unit cost from $350,000 to $240,000. The overall cost will be covered via $2 million from the Steans Family Foundation and $4 million from the city’s Housing and Economic Development Bond, per Block Club.
A press release for the project can be found here, with an estimated completion set for next year.
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So $240,000 per unit for affordable housing is possible? This should be scaled up immediately.
This is all anyone talks about – the price of city-led development is atrocious. The price of private market led development that is subsidized by the city is clearly the answer as shown here.
But if we let these small-time private market flat-builders take over, how will the well-connected big-time “affordable” housing grifters continue to line their pockets?
Oh, won’t somebody PLEASE thinK of the well-connected big-time “affordable” housing grifters?
100% agree! Only mega-projects run by certified grifters, please. I’m particularly upset about these units’ lack of primary-colored accent walls and motivational murals. Finally, the “Trumbull Collection” sounds way too Anglo. Shocking that this type of development is even allowed.
These missing middle housing developments are not subsidized Affordable Housing. Which is why the cost per unit is lower. They will be sold at a price that the market will dictate, which is likely to be affordable in the short term, but has no guarantee of remaining affordable over the course of the next 30 years.
Subsidized, capital A, Affordable Housing projects include the ongoing subsidies, that lower the cost of rent, in their funding stack, which includes projected maintenance costs over the 30 year period of limitations on the rental cost of those units.
All fantastic news! More units, less cost per. Keep it going!
$240k per unit is amazing!
Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
Kudos to the chefs!
How do we get thousands of these built?
The cost per unit could be even lower if the city really wanted affordable units. The city needs a more entrepreneurial spirit and cut out all the middle people. If delivering affordable housing is truly the goal then that is the way to go. Lets give the city the benefit of the doubt – they are trying to achieve other objectives too. However the consequences are that the main objective of delivering affordable housing turns into an expensive joke. Just for the record the same happens with other city and state building projects like hospitals, etc etc