Check out the two proposals to develop the long vacant lot on the southwest corner of 115th & Michigan which used be home to a retail strip back in the day. The development would be perfect for the soon to come CTA Red Line extension where a stop would be located nearby.
A grocery store would be a good pick-up for that corner and certainly a cafe or restaurant. In addition to whatever retail that may come there will be some housing with some green space. And then of course a park & ride for those who will be taking the Red Line.
When you see these proposals what are your thoughts? What would like to see at 115th & Michigan?
Years and years ago on Michigan Avenue, Roseland had a bowling alley. You could take the bus there directly on Michigan. If I could single-handedly redevelop the Michigan Avenue drag it would be somewhere that is walkable.
Go to the movies, restaurants, retail, professional services, etc right on Michigan Avenue and some other streets such as 111th or 115th. If this business still existed could it benefit from the Red Line extension?
The RoseBowl itself I had to Google where it was located and the address is posted below the photograph. Unfortunately today it's just another vacant lot right across the street from yet another vacant lot. Though since I mentioned the Red Line extension, one day this might be part of transit-oriented development.
This is what you would've found on the vacant lot at 115th & Michigan perhaps before the mid-2000s at least.
Of course as you can see by the cars here, this is a vintage photograph. Coffee Pot is likely in the foreground. And then the National grocery store you see in the background here.
Once the Red Line is built in this area, here's hoping we can have this block brought back to life again in the future. Retail, restaurants, hopefully some other services.
[VIDEO] Just found this video this morning and discusses some thing I knew was going to happen.
For example we know that bus service through the affected areas of the Red Line extention will change. Bus routings will either be combined, extended or even eliminated. So the proposed routings we see here such as extending buses into Indiana aren't very likely.
I would like to see more utilization of Metra Electric service especially within those areas that won't be directly served by CTA extension. Especially in the South Chicago/South Shore area and certainly going into West Pullman and Blue Island - further west.
And transit oriented development. I don't know about developing high density projects. High rises for example or even developing say a new neighborhood. Roseland and Altgeld Gardens aren't very desirable areas anyway.
I would say the lot at 115th/Michigan - where a stop will be located would be a great possibility for a multi-use development. I'm thinking certainly housing and retail - perhaps another grocery store and certainly businesses with the commuter in mind. So I think in that area that's a possibility of developing something that might work for the area.
Also I'd be curious how the YouTuber - BurjTransit - gets these numbers 38,000 riders are expected to use this extension once it's online. However, it's more likely that 6,000 rides would utilize the services. I'm sure the 38K comes from CTA's projection itself.
However, let's note as he had that the Red Line ridership hasn't been great post-pandemic. CTA as a whole has issues as far as rail service and certainly if you've had to take a bus anywhere in recent years.
What are your thoughts on the CTA extension? What do you think it would bring to this part of Chicago's south side?
[VIDEO] I suppose this could be a question for both Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson for the 2023 runoff, what is their position on the CTA Red Line extension. What would they be able to do to make this future extension into Ward 9/Roseland a reality?
I would like to see the shopping strip south of 111th Street at least get the attention it needs. From Chicago Public Radio:
Roseland is the last of the 10 communities targeted for redevelopment under the city’s ambitious INVEST South/West economic program; Michigan Avenue is a centerpiece. Compared to other neighborhoods struggling with vacant land, this part of Michigan Avenue has comparatively few – only 10 empty lots, according to my informal count.
The city owns three vacant lots in the vicinity, including the former Gately’s department store at the corner of 112th and Michigan. The city’s vision for that location is housing with retail stores. The planned CTA Red Line extension is a few blocks south near 116th and Michigan, and the city wants to develop the land next to it. And there’s a third vacant lot that was the site of a movie theater that Cox sees as a blank canvas.
Other elements of the city’s revitalization plan include affordable housing, transit-oriented development and retail connected to the emerging medical district anchored by the nearby Roseland Community Hospital. Normally when the city looks to redevelop land it owns, its department of planning and development, which Cox leads, puts out a request for proposals.
“We found that that was an unfair barrier for a lot of Black and brown developers,” Cox said. Instead Cox says the city is asking for a request of qualifications for Michigan Avenue. Developers and architects will then be matched up to create a joint venture. Those teams will each get a $20,000 to $30,000 stipend from a philanthropic foundation to pitch a proposal.
“We eliminate that barrier of smaller emerging developers from being able to compete and having to advance those dollars to come up with their proposals,” Cox said.
The community will hear the proposals by March 2023.
Read the whole thing. Perhaps this is something that those candidates running for Alderman in Ward 9 where this strip is located can express their ideas.
Oh and there is a theater in the neighborhood still standing waiting for redevelopment although if that vacant lot that once had a theater is the State Theater perhaps if they could make a good deal with the Post Office.
[VIDEO] CTA has a new video out about the CTA Red Line extension that is still being planned that takes the Red Line further south into Roseland and Altgeld Gardens where the final destination is 130th Street. The next critical phase for this ambitious project is construction which is expected to cost $2.3 billion half of that would come from federal funding and the rest from non-federal funding i.e from the city of Chicago, state of Illinois and/or even CTA itself.
I like these renderings of the various stops on the southbound Red Line extensions.
This editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times makes reference to last year's fire at the former Gatelys Department store on the Michigan Avenue shopping strip south of 111th Street. It's probably time to redevelop that corridor, especially in time for that Red Line extension whenever it gets funded and construction starts.
Keep an eye on the Roseland neighborhood’s Michigan Avenue, once a retail strip so popular it was called Chicago’s second Magnificent Mile.
Shoppers could find anything from school supplies to furniture to brand new cars.
Rocked by two devastating extra-alarm fires within the last year, and now slammed by a pandemic that’s likely to change forever how we shop and gather, the faded and struggling commercial strip faces a tough future.
But “The Avenue” — as this stretch of Michigan Avenue between 115th and 107th was called in its heyday — now is being targeted by the city for possible redevelopment.
The plans were in place before the coronavirus broke out and they’ll need to be modified. But given that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit all traditional retail strips hard — have you seen the boarded up stores on North Michigan Avenue these days? — saving The Avenue should be even more of a priority.
When neighborhood shopping dies, neighborhoods die.
The Avenue’s day as a regional commercial giant are not likely to return. People just don’t shop in brick-and-mortar stores the way they used to, and the street’s major retailers, such as JCPenney, are long gone.
But the buildings still stand and could be reused in potentially exciting new ways. And if done correctly, the lessons learned here could be applied to troubled commercial streets in neighborhoods elsewhere on the South and West sides.
Probably excerpted a lot more than I should've so I'll stop there and hope that you'll read the whole thing.
The editorial itself makes reference to this strip's proximity to the Pullman National Monument. How could the businesses and the community leverage that. The Avenue - at least for those old school residents might refer to the strip - might not return to the glory days. I still would like to see what plans could develop with revitalization. What entrepreneurs can become successful in this area.
I snapped these shots of the site of the former shopping center on 115th & Halsted Michigan during the summer of 2014. I never released the shots back then, but I wanted to share the context of this site with this article from the Chicago Reader which was actually published in 2003.
It illustrated the history of the former Halsted Indoor Mall which was once housed in a building that once contained a Zayre store. The shopping center here contained both a Foot Locker store and a beauty supply as well as a Jewel-Osco. However at some point all these stores have since closed. The Jewel-Osco closed once a new store was built at the new shopping center located at 119th Street and Marshfield (or on the west side of I-57) should be around 2007 or 2008.
I do remember shopping with my family at the old Zayre store and the old Jewel store you see in the photos below was another shopping destination over the years until the new store opened across the I-57 expressway. One ominous piece of information I learned shopping here one day, my mother was told by another customer that they did snatch purses in that store. YIKES!
At some point after 2012 the former Halsted Indoor Mall was razed, I see this looking at Google Streetview. And that largely ends the saga of the former space which seemed to riddled with some issues involving it's management by the people who operated the space and certainly the people who owned it. The property itself remains vacant with the idea of at some point perhaps something else will be developed here. Perhaps more retail or even some mixed-use retail and residential.
Below are the photographs from summer 2014. I wish I had a pic of the sign on the corner of 115th & Halsted which even the last time I drove by here still had a sign for the Halsted Indoor Mall although the building no longer stands.
Here's a Google Streetview of this property before the Indoor Mall building was razed from 2012 after this you see it's no longer standing. And as stated already the above photos were shot in the summer of 2014.
Even though Rahm Emanuel will only remain mayor until May 2019, he seems to be coming up with some proposals. He's still trying to use what's left of his political heft to come up with some ideas for the city:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday floated a port district site on the Far Southeast Side as the possible location for a Chicago casino, if state lawmakers finally grant the city the long-sought gambling palace.
In a meeting with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, Emanuel noted his “love-hate” relationship with the idea of a casino but said if the city finally builds one it should be away from the Loop and McCormick Place. Instead, he said it should bring economic development to an area of the city that needs it, before floating an Illinois International Port District site near Pullman as “an example.”
The land, just off the 111th Street exit on the Bishop Ford Freeway, currently is home to the Harborside International golf course with some harbor operations and terminals nearby on Lake Calumet. The port district that owns the land is a joint city-state entity.
“If you go down to the port authority where the golf course is, there’s enough land there for both a hotel and a casino,” Emanuel said. “That would be a big boon economically to the Southeast Side of the city.”
Emanuel made the remarks on the same day he gave a speech to aldermen on his recommendations to address the city’s pension funding shortfalls moving forward. The mayor’s plan included revenue from a proposed Chicago casino as part of the answer.
Personally I'm with this, who says a proposed casino has to be in or near downtown Chicago. Put one in a neighborhood that's struggling. In this case Pullman, and then again hopefully there are other proposals.
However, to be honest it seems like forever that there's been discussions of a Chicago casino that seems to have a tendency to fall through. So perhaps deciding on a site or finally building one will still take years. Wait and see I suppose.
[VIDEO] I'm sorry I missed this report from over the past summer. WBBM-TV looks at a tale of two communities with Pullman to the west being revitalized with a variety of redevelopment with retail and most of historic Pullman now a national monument.
And now you have Roseland which even Ald. Anthony Beale (9th Ward) would refer to blight as he stands at the commercial area on Michigan Avenue. You see him speaking between Pullman and Michigan Avenue and he sees revitalization in Roseland.
I have thought about making a comparison say between Streeterville in Downtown Chicago and say River North or North Michigan Ave from east to west. Streeterville is a very wealthy area, but then the areas near by are also wealthy and probably can't compare so easily to Pullman and Roseland.
Pullman has the history, architecture and now a national monument and some other development. Roseland with it's own history and blight is waiting for it's own revitalization. If I had my own vision Pullman could be the area of choice for many because of it's history. Then again what about Roseland?
Roseland could be neighborhood for everyone else. It's the land of opportunity and like Englewood it's sort of blank canvas. The right vision will for example see a revitalized Michigan Avenue strip no more boarded up storefronts or vacant lots. And of course a wonderful place to live just like their neighbors to the east.
BTW, if any smart aspiring politicians are reading this blog I can only imagine the "campaign ads" that come from this short video.
[VIDEO] Sorry to have missed this. The new Pullman Community Center located near 103rd & Woodlawn has finally opened. We start with the above video from CBS 2 and then excerpt from this Sun-Times article
After nearly a decade of planning and a frenzied round of corporate fundraising, a $20 million, 135,000-square-foot sports, recreation and educational center opened its doors at 10355 S. Woodlawn Ave.
The massive U.S. Bank Pullman Community Center is one of the largest indoor sports facilities in Illinois and the fifth-largest in the country. It includes three basketball/tennis courts and three synthetic turf fields that can be used for baseball, football and soccer.
The facility also includes community meeting rooms and classroom space.
“We’re looking at keeping 1,100 kids a week off the streets, doing something positive and constructive. A facility that’s gonna be open probably 12 to 14 hours a day. That gives people opportunity. It gives ’em hope,” Beale said Thursday.
“If you’re struggling in school and you’re enrolled in this facility, we’re gonna provide free ACT, SAT and tutoring in whatever subject that you need.”
Over at The Sixth Ward we've discussed the "dreaded G word" especially as it pertained to the now open Whole Foods Market in Englewood. I always figured that the activists of Englewood - I'm mainly referring to the Resident Association of Greater Englewood - would find a way to stop gentrification.
If there was a fear that long-time small businesses or long-time low-income residents could eventually be displaced by long term economic redevelopment then perhaps Englewood residents who "buy the block" will change the direction of redevelopment. For many the Whole Foods store would likely be the beginning of this, but then if I recall the history there were some Englewood residents who fantasized about Whole Foods coming in and they did.
As you see in this article below buying the block is about buying up residential properties. Check it out below from Curbed Chicago.
The historic Pullman neighborhood is getting 38 units of affordable housing inside a new $18 million artists' enclave—some 124 years after Pullman railroad car workers went on strike over the company's refusal to lower their rents after cutting their pay.
The Pullman Artspace Lofts, a new apartment building to be built between two long-abandoned Pullman workers' housing units, sits on three-quarters of an acre on Langley Avenue, just south of 111th Street. The three-story, 32,000-square-foot complex sits on land that's been vacant for 88 years. The construction itself marks the first new residential development built in Pullman in nearly half a century. It's unique because it will house 2,000 square feet of community space intended to be used as an art gallery, meeting place, classrooms, and community room. It's expected to open in early fall 2019.
The Artspace Lofts is a home-grown project in a neighborhood that has more than its share of artists, including painters, musicians, filmmakers, sculptors, and ceramicists, said architect Ann Alspaugh, a board member and past president of Pullman Arts, a neighborhood nonprofit whose volunteers have worked on the development for the past eight years.
"It's [the result of] a lot of hard work by a lot of people," she said, noting that the project required meeting and even exceeding local and state landmark and historic district requirements, obtaining unconventional funding, and conducting detailed feasibility studies.
I might have a few shots of the land where these lofts are to be located to be shared in the future. There was a period of time that I strolled through Pullman either on foot or driving where I took a series of photographs. And surely the work in Pullman is still not completed at least not yet!
Yet one lower-income South Side neighborhood manages to defy the ironclad logic of the favored quarter: historic Pullman, a vibrant enclave in the middle of the South Side that is home to equal numbers of African Americans, Latinos, and whites. (Not all South and West neighborhoods are poor, but most of those doing well economically—Hyde Park, the Near West Side, Bridgeport, and Beverly—are predominantly white and Asian.)
The relative peace and prosperity of Pullman in the midst of the hard-hit South Side highlights the promise of “asset-based” community development—the idea that focusing on the strengths of a particular place is just as important as targeting the problems. This model offers practical lessons for other neighborhoods across the country suffering from economic disinvestment and social unraveling. In Pullman’s case, a remarkable degree of resilience has arisen from these assets: high levels of civic engagement; a physical environment that encourages walking and social interaction; access to resources tied to historic preservation; and an ambitious community developer planting stakes in the neighborhood.
If the name Pullman sounds vaguely familiar, it’s likely because of the legendary railroad sleeping cars built here from 1881 to 1955. Pullman was no grimy slum, but actually one of the most celebrated urban planning projects of the nineteenth century—providing a good place to live was part of owner George Pullman’s mission to elevate the character of his workers. The London Times declared the elegant public buildings and squares flanked by single-family homes for managers and handsome brick townhouses for workers “the most perfect town in the world.” The other reason you may have heard of Pullman is that in 1894 the company’s workers responded to wage cuts with no reduction in rent at company-owned housing with a historic strike.
This Tribune article updates us on the progress of that Pullman National Monument announced by then President Barack Obama in 2015:
Since 2015, Pullman National Monument has moved sluggishly toward these goals. The state-owned grounds are in the midst of an extensive cleanup from decades of industrial waste. The National Park Service’s visitors center, planned for the clock tower building, has been pushed back at least a year. Plans mapping out the monument’s long-term future were supposed to be completed within three years but are only now beginning. State and federal money has been minimal, and progress on some projects has been slowed because of several federal government shutdowns and an unprecedented two-year state budget standoff.
The one project that could move forward, an apartment building for artists, is on hold after federal officials told the developers to seek additional input from the public.
“My wife and I have been here for 50 years, and we’ve seen different cycles and levels of interest from people working in Pullman,” said resident Mike Shymanski. Progress “takes time and takes patience, but once the restoration is done it’ll be around a long time.”
Pullman was expected to draw 300,000 visitors per year by 2025, however, with its current annual attendance at only 50,000, those estimates seem ambitious.
Now, the park is contending with a president who is less supportive of conservation. The Trump administration recently shrunk two Utah national monuments, bringing about at least two legal challenges and legislation to counter the move.
Here's something from Tribune Graphics showing a map of the Pullman area under the national parks.
While it's not looking that good there are some positive developments:
The first floor of the state-owned Hotel Florence could open even sooner, possibly over the summer after contractors finish building an accessibility ramp and restoring and furnishing the elaborate interior.
The park service also plans to work outside the monument to generate buzz through a grant from the McCormick Foundation to develop curriculum in area classrooms on nationally significant themes: transformation of passenger rail travel, urban planning, Pullman’s role in the American labor movement and the porters’ civil rights movement.
What are the plans for the Hotel Florence? I'm very keen on finding out!
Found a post about this on instagram recently, and decided to find the accompanying story for this via Chicago Tribune. There's something going on in Pullman with that Whole Foods distribution center and now Gotham Greens coming with a new greenhouse:
The new $12.5 million, 105,000-square-foot greenhouse will be on South Doty Avenue on the former Ryerson industrial site in Pullman, according to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office, near the company’s first Pullman greenhouse on top of the Method soap factory. The expansion reflects both the company’s success in the Chicago market — through selling its products in chains including Jewel-Osco and Whole Foods Market — as well as the continued redevelopment of the Pullman area. While Gotham’s first Pullman greenhouse was a rooftop structure, the second one will be free-standing.
“We’re thrilled to be building a second, larger, state-of-the-art greenhouse facility in Pullman,” Gotham Greens CEO Viraj Puri said in an email. “Retailers, institutional food service operators are increasingly attracted to consistency and reliability of our year-round, local produce supply. Further, consumer interest in locally produced food continues to grow.” ... The project could receive up to $3.35 million in tax increment financing assistance for site work on 6.2 acres, though that’s still subject to City Council approval, according to the mayor’s office. The existing zoning of the planned development would also need to be amended to allow for light manufacturing, according to the mayor’s office.
The land — situated just north of Planet Fitness along the Bishop Ford Expressway — is part of the former Ryerson industrial site owned by U.S. Bank and Pullman-based nonprofit developer Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives.
David Doig, president of CNI, said the nonprofit would improve the site before selling it to Gotham Greens for up to $800,000.
The new Gotham Greens greenhouse will employ about 60 workers.
This all occurred yesterday including the bread breaking which is what they do when they open new stores. For example they did the same thing upon opening the Whole Foods store at 63rd/Halsted. This is from the Mayor's ig page.
And also Elgie Sims - state representative of the 34th District for Illinois - was also in on the action and also posted a college of pics on his ig page also.
