TIF funding has been fully approved for the upcoming affordable housing project at 547 W Oak Street in the Near North Side. Earlier this month we covered when the Committee on Finance approved the money before sending it to City Council, who has now given its stamp of approval. The project will replace a vacant lot within the greater Cabrini Green site area.
Rendering of 547 W Oak Street by Pappageorge Haymes Partners
Led by Brinshore Development & The Michaels Organization, the building itself is being designed by Pappageorge Haymes Partners which is set to rise seven-stories and 80-feet in height. A site wide one-story podium will contain the main lobby, a community room, and a 39-vehicle parking garage in the rear.
Rendering of 547 W Oak Street by Pappageorge Haymes Partners
The floors above will hold 78 residential units of which 24 will be market rate, 37 considered public housing, and 17 affordable for those making 30 to 80-percent AMI. The unit mix will consist of 10 studios, 27 one-bed, 35 two-bed, and six three-bed layouts. Additionally, tenants will have access to outdoor spaces and a fitness room.
Rendering of 547 W Oak Street by Pappageorge Haymes Partners
With a final cost of $52.9 million, the now approved $14 million in TIF money will cover a large portion of it. Additionally, LIHTC equity, tax credits, grants, and loans will make up the rest. The developer has already filed for construction permits with a joint venture of WARI-JLL serving as the contractor. Once started, work should take around 18-months to complete.
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Using scarce tax dollars to ensure that this area never achieves full tax generating potential is the definition of insanity. These parcels should be producing some of the highest tax revenue in the city but now they wont even come close to their potential. The residents they move in will actually depress tax revenues and economic activity while consuming more than their fair share of scarce resources. Simply put, Chicago is run by fools, just look at at the debt they saddled the next 4 generations with yesterday. Only complete collapse can save this city from itself. Or maybe it’s time to acknowledge that the people who built Chicago are long gone, they’re never coming back and it’s been left to the stewardship incompetents.
can you explain why you think “These parcels should be producing some of the highest tax revenue in the city”?
Locationn , Location , Location .
It isn’t by the lakefront. Proximity to the lake correlates to higher property values. It isn’t along the river, which could lead to higher property values as the river becomes cleaner and more recreation-focused.
Couldn’t agree more.
Reality is, too much of Chicago’s voting base and the leaders they elect have been idealogically captured by a failed philosophy that free markets and Capitalism are pure evil, despite being too ignorant to understand the irony that the very city that they live in and the prewar streetscapes that they praise were almost entirely built that way.
While I have no problem with creating affordable housing, it should be done by non-for-profits using their own funding and financing; it should not be built by the taxpayer.
I don’t know if it’s a Chicago thing…. this has been federally funded public housing land since 1942.
HUD (the Feds) is a monster. It needs to be completely eliminated. Just because the Feds took over the land in 1942 doesn’t mean it was a good idea then or now. The federal government has no right to hamper Chicago or any city’s development potential with their misadventures. Highest and best use is the only way forward from this ongoing disaster.
God if you are going to be political, try not to be so obnoxiously wrong. Especially with what’s currently going on, I would not be so proudly ignorant. Chicago has had bad leaders, both Republican and Democrat. I say the worst thing plaguing this city are NIMBYs who ruin every decent proposal.
Chicago has not had a single Republican leader in 96 years. Who’s being proudly ignorant here, you defending the failed status quo or I pointing out that all current paths lead to ever accelerating failure? NIMBYs aren’t going to matter because the investment pipeline into the city is not just stagnant it’s reversing, the city is uninvestable and toxic at this point. In our own pipeline our last Chicago based deal fell apart in 2022 and we haven’t had a single Chicago deal in 3 years now. The suburbs have been spotty and all the real action is far from IL at this point and it’s getting worse. You can remain proudly ignorant yourself or take off the blinders and see the reality on the ground.
👆🏼 Yes. Correct. Ditto. 👏🏼
Hear, hear
It was an empty lot before? How is nothing better than something?
What a terrible perspective. This city isn’t a business. It’s not here to produce revenue. It’s here to provide housing, business opportunities, and infrastructure for its citizens. To do that properly, Chicago needs to have affordable housing like this. And not just concentrate it to some undesirable area. That’s how we got in the situation we’re in now. All different types of people need to commingle.
24 units will be market rate ? lol. Good luck with that, I had to move from the building across the street after witnessing two shoot outs in broad daylight outside while walking my dog. I’ll never live anywhere close to public housing again. Especially not while paying market rate anything.
What year was that, just out of curiosity? I knew it used to be really bad over there but thought it had cleaned up in recent years.
Hey Zapton, it was 2 years ago, it didn’t get any better, you can ask people at Montgomery condos off Chicago ave next to Cabrini, they’ll tell you everything you need to know since local media is not reporting on any of it. They manage to do drive by right in front of police station on Larrabee, it’s wild.
What a boondoggle! $14 million divided by “36 considered public housing” comes out to $376,378 per unit. Why not ask our bloated foundations to simply buy all the homes that are under water and either give them to the people who onwed them or give them away via lottery? The private market can not ssolve this. Where is the CHA in all this? The last time i looked, the CHA was sitting in hundreds of millions of dolars in cash.
Actually, that’s a pretty reasonable amount for affordable housing.
I think that this thread (all comments) is missing the benefit that comes from economically integrated communities. Indeed, a great number of Chicago’s problems come from it being so segregated. You cannot achieve integration just by building expensive housing in poorer areas. You also need affordable housing in wealthy areas. I don’t think anyone is denying that there are issues with the affordable housing approach or the challenges to development in Chicago, but the dog whistles I’m reading across this comment section are completely uncalled for.
Oh, hogwash with your ‘dog whistles’ crap. Try that on someone else.
The public should not be building housing for a select group of people. Especially at these inflated prices. It’s corrupt and it’s wrong.
In a perfect world – somewhere in Europe that could work, from my experience in Chicago : I lived next to this proposed building on Larrabee and it’s riddled with crime and shootings (public housing Nextdoor) and now I live in the Row Fulton market (large number of affordable units) and zero issues. The difference- to get a discounted rate apt at the Row you need to prove income (have a job) and pass background check – the result – totally normal law obedient people of diverse background. Public housing- no requirements= nightmare for the neighborhood. Everyone who’s pushing for public housing should relocate to Cabrini and we’ll see how fast they’ll change their mind.
Construction costs are really high these days. With the tarrifs on imported materials, labor shortages, deportations, bottlenecks in supply chain from “re-shoring” away from China there are just so many extra costs. In general even market rate buildings can’t get financed and off the ground, so you definitely wouldn’t get this off the ground without incentives.
However, you are absolutely right to call out the CHA for being an absolute cesspit of incompetence. No argument from me there.
I think it’s interesting how private construction costs so much less than public these days. Sometimes three to four times the amount per unit. I’d love to know why that is. You would think that if a project is government-funded that it could skirt a lot of licensing fees or whatever else the city and state might have a private developer pay. But it seems to be the opposite or something. I’ve just never had that explain to me in a way that makes sense for anyone.
Jared, this was from a conversation with someone whose knowledge of the issue I trust, I don’t have permission to share exactly what we discussed, but here are a couple factors he brought up. For what it’s worth…
“For affordable housing, the high costs are due to the labor and lender. To obtain government assistance, there are requirements about union labor (I totally get that and support it) but it adds more than 33% to the costs….. (and) it’s getting all the lenders in place to get the project off the ground that really makes it expensive.”