NORTH LAWNDALE — An affordable housing project broke ground on a former police parking lot in North Lawndale Monday, a development neighborhood leaders hope will bring much-needed resources to Ogden Avenue.
The $40 million Grace Manor, 3201-3423 W. Ogden Ave., will have 65 apartments and is expected to be completed in spring 2025, according to developers.
Funding came from the Chicago Housing Authority and the city’s Housing department, which provided up to $34.7 million in Multi-Family Housing Revenue Bonds, TIF funding and Multi-Family Loan Funds to support the construction, according to the Mayor’s Office.
Ald. Monique Scott (24th) said Grace Manor is significant for the ward she grew up in, especially as she thought the development would never end up happening. The project was conceived when her brother, Michael Scott Jr., was alderman.
“Many people call my office daily for housing, and this will give 65 people the opportunity to have affordable housing. This is just an example of more things to come in the 24th Ward,” she said.
Grace Manor is built on top of an unused police parking lot at the Ogden (10th) District police station, 3315 W. Ogden Ave.
The ground floor will have community and commercial tenants, including health and wellness service providers, as well as job training and wealth-building classes, according to the Mayor’s Office.
The second through sixth floors will have 31 one-bedroom and 34 two-bedroom apartments, plus a rooftop deck on the sixth floor, the Mayor’s Office said.
An INVEST South/West project, the apartments are for households making 60 percent of the area median income.
The project is being overseen by Rev. Marvin Hunter, pastor of Grace Memorial Baptist Church. East Lake Management Corporation and Grace at Jerusalem Community Development Corporation are the developers. JGMA is in charge of the architecture.
Lead architect Juan Moreno said the development will help spur more positive developments in North Lawndale.
“People forget this is the alpha of Route 66. There’s challenges in our community, but we often forget the positive moments too,” Moreno said. “There’s already a momentum of development happening here, and this just reinforces it.”
One aim of the project was to bring people back to North Lawndale, officials previously said. Research from UIC’s Great Cities Institute showed the Black population in the neighborhood dropped nearly 10 percent between 2010-2020. Around $124 million leaves Lawndale every year because there aren’t enough jobs for residents in the neighborhood and the commercial corridors are underdeveloped, according to UIC researchers.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, a West Sider, said Grace Manor aligns with his campaign pledge to increase affordable housing throughout the city. Johnson said it will also expand on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of affordable housing, starting in the community where the civil rights leader lived more than 50 years ago.
“Dr. King said that if we can figure it out in the city of Chicago, we can figure it out anywhere in the world. I’m convinced now more than ever that housing is a human right,” Johnson said.
Johnson announced at the groundbreaking he will sign an executive order to streamline housing development in the city.
The order requires 14 city departments to reevaluate their approval and development processes in order to speed up review and approval timelines for commercial and housing projects, Johnson said. Those departments will have 90 days to submit their findings and proposed changes to the Mayor’s Office.
“Chicago, like other major cities, is grappling with an affordable housing shortage. We know what the lack of housing and resources can do to a community,” Johnson said. “We all have an obligation to provide resources that our residents need to live and thrive in the greatest city in the world. But in order to make that happen, city government has to get out of its own way.”
There are other issues worsening the affordable housing shortage throughout the city.
An investigation by Block Club Chicago and the Illinois Answers Project found the CHA is sitting on nearly 500 empty homes that are part of its scattered-site program — even as Chicago struggles to address housing crises on multiple fronts, from historically high rents that many families can’t afford to a surge in homelessness to a stream of migrants who need shelter.
In all, the CHA owns about 2,900 scattered-site residences dispersed throughout dozens of neighborhoods. But one out of every six of the homes is empty, and dozens of them have been unoccupied for years, records show.
That includes several multi-family buildings in North Lawndale that have been vacant and boarded up for years.
Alderpeople have demanded meetings with CHA CEO Tracey Scott following these findings.
The city’s housing department also does not have a permanent leader. Former Commissioner Marisa Novara resigned in July and has not been replaced.
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