Folks on the Southwest Side have been driving past an empty stretch of Cicero Avenue for a long time. The old LeClaire Courts public housing site in Garfield Ridge has sat vacant since the Chicago Housing Authority closed it in 2011. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, the shovels finally went in.
Mayor Brandon Johnson joined the city's Department of Housing, The Habitat Company and Cabrera Capital Partners to break ground on LeClaire Courts North, the first phase of a much bigger redevelopment. According to the city's announcement, the project at 4400-58 S. Cicero Ave. will have 183 apartments, 165 of them affordable, plus commercial space and parking.
"We are taking a site that has been vacant for 15 years and putting it back to work for this community," Johnson said.
What's going up first
The first phase is two six-story mixed-use buildings on Cicero between 44th and 45th streets. Urbanize Chicago, which covered the groundbreaking, reported the buildings will hold 110 and 73 apartments, in a mix of studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom units, designed by the architecture firm SCB. The 110-unit building will have 134 parking spaces, and each building gets 40 bike spaces.
The affordable apartments will serve households earning 15%, 30%, 50%, 60% and 80% of the area median income. CHA CEO Keith Pettigrew said nearly half of the 183 apartments will go to CHA residents, and that CHA households and market-rate renters will share the same address, amenities and standard of quality.
"It's been a long time, folks," Pettigrew said, according to Southwest Regional Publishing. "But today, we start making good on our commitment to bring housing back to this site."
The north building will include about 14,000 square feet expected to be leased by Chicago Commons for an early childhood center. Chicago Commons CEO Edgar Ramirez said it will serve more than 100 children from six weeks old through preschool and create 30 to 40 living-wage jobs. There will also be a smaller retail space in the south building.
Who's building it, and how it's paid for
Here's the detail contractors will want. According to Urbanize Chicago, George Sollitt Construction Co. is the general contractor, and construction is set to wrap up in 2028.
The money stack is a classic affordable housing layer cake, and the total runs well over $100 million. Urbanize Chicago put the first phase at $119 million. The city is putting in $15 million: $9.5 million in Department of Housing multifamily loan funds and $5.5 million in Cicero/Stevenson tax increment financing. The Chicago Housing Authority is contributing a $27 million capital loan, according to Urbanize, and the project's 4% low-income housing tax credits through the Illinois Housing Development Authority are expected to bring in about $34 million in equity. Bank of America is also a financing partner.
Johnson and Housing Commissioner Lissette Castañeda said the city's financing keeps the development affordable for 30 years.
This is just the start. The developers plan a larger mixed-income neighborhood on the full 32-acre site, bounded by Cicero Avenue, 45th Street, Lavergne Avenue and the Stevenson Expressway. Their plans call for about 700 homes, roughly 440,000 square feet of commercial space and public open space. Cabrera Capital CEO Martin Cabrera put the full project at about $550 million.
Urbanize reported that future phases will add more apartment buildings, townhome-style homes, senior housing, retail, health care services and open space, and that infrastructure work is already underway across the site: street realignment, utility upgrades, lighting, traffic improvements, and new sidewalks and ADA-accessible paths.
Some neighbors have waited a very long time. Joanne Williams, a U.S. Army disabled veteran who has lived in the LeClaire Courts community for 60 years, served on the CHA working group that picked the development team in 2019. "After 27 years of waiting, it's finally happening," she said.
Why it matters for Contractors
A 32-acre redevelopment with about 700 homes planned is a long, multi-year pipeline of work for the Southwest Side. The first phase alone, two six-story mixed-use buildings, means work for concrete and structural crews, framers or metal stud installers, roofers, MEP subs, drywall and finish trades, plus the build-out of a 14,000-square-foot child care center. George Sollitt Construction Co. is the name to know for bid packages on phase one. And with site infrastructure already underway and townhomes, senior housing and retail still to come, civil, utility and site contractors should keep a close eye on what Habitat and Cabrera Capital do next.