Work is set to ramp up on a new health and nutrition center at 1110 E 130th Place in Altgeld Gardens. Located on the north east corner of the housing complex, the new building would bring additional services to the area that are in demand after years of exposure to some of the highest pollution and contamination levels in the city.
Rendering of new TCA Nutrition and Wellness Center by Wheeler Kearns Architects
Altgeld Gardens on the southern border of the city was mostly built around 1945, spanning across 190 acres with nearly 1,500 homes. Aimed at housing African Americans and including schools and parks within its borders, the complex was surrounded by 50 landfills and 380+ industrial facilities, leading to high cancer, disease and birth defect rates.
Rendering of new TCA Nutrition and Wellness Center by Wheeler Kearns Architects
Rendering of new TCA Nutrition and Wellness Center by Wheeler Kearns Architects
Though things have improved thanks to the advocacy of its residents, the area is still a food desert after losing its only full-service grocery store in 2018. Thus local organization TCA Health will be building a new 10,000 square-foot expansion to their current facility designed by Wheeler Kearns Architects, having hosted a groundbreaking recently and now receiving building permits.
Rendering of new TCA Nutrition and Wellness Center by Wheeler Kearns Architects
This new building will be connected to TCA’s current health facility and focus on food, featuring a Client Choice Food Pantry, grab and go cafe, teaching kitchen, yoga and meditation space, and community meeting rooms. This will be the first time in years locals will have near direct access to fresh food without a long commute.
Rendering of new TCA Nutrition and Wellness Center by Wheeler Kearns Architects
Clad in gray metal panels and surrounded by landscaped green spaces, the building is just down the street from the future terminus of the CTA Red Line post extension. The roughly $4.5 million project will be built by John Keno and Co. as well as Millhouse Construction; TCA hopes to complete the work by June 2025.
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There is clearly architectural talent available to the Chicago area. why do mainline developers continue to go for the lowest common denominator? I’d willingly pay more to live in something that wasn’t clearly built with the most efficient and utilitarian design possible.
Chicago doesn’t have the demand anymore to require top of the line designs. At this point, we gotta be grateful at any highrises that get built here in the near future.
Not talking about “highrises”, just good design.
The neighbors would be up in arms, they want the mundane
Hi, All!
This is good news for Altgeld Gardens, with this new development and building. However, couldn’t this development engage and reuse the former curvilinear and now vacant “Up-Top Building,” designed by architects, Keck and Keck? The Up-Top Building is a spectacular structure which continues to languish, despite once being the center of Altgeld Gardens. Anyway, we just wanted to suggest a reuse for that marvelous historic building, which has so much potential.