University Village rises on Maxwell St. site
Chicago Sun-Times, Homelife Section, October 26, 2001
BY LARRY FINLEY HOMELIFE STAFF WRITER
A new neighborhood is being created on the Near West Side as the University of Illinois at Chicago continues to grow and evolve.
A public-private partnership is carving University Village out of the remains of the old Maxwell Street Market neighborhood and surrounding streets.
The smells of fried onions and sausages are gone. The sounds of street-corner blues musicians and push cart vendors are only memories.
In their place are the rumble of trucks and hammer of construction crews as the area is turned into a neighborhood of condominiums and town houses, new student housing and streets of shops.
"This campus has been coming on strong, and the university has nurtured more than most people realize," said Richard Stein, president of Mesirow Stein Real Estate Inc.
"What the private-public partnership does is anchor the south side of campus, and become a bridge between Pilsen and Little Italy," Stein said. "It creates more of a residential life for the students and creates an opportunity for the faculty to come and live here."
The residential component of the new construction will add approximately 930 town houses and condominiums. Prices range from about $165,900 to $700,000. The buyers are coming from the university and the general public, attracted by the variety of prices and the access to downtown, he said.
The new expansion area is bounded by Roosevelt Road on the north, 15th Place on the south, Morgan Street on the west and Union Street and the Dan Ryan Expy. on the east.
The university's new $3 million athletic fields occupy the northwest sector of the new area. Several new academic buildings and parking garages will be built near Halsted and Roosevelt.
The city and the university are working together on the project, which benefits from the creation of a special Roosevelt-Union Tax Increment Financing District.
The development team consists of Mesirow Stein, the Harlem-Irving Companies and the New Frontier Companies.
The city is putting a major effort into new infrastructure for the area, including rebuilding Halsted Street.
"Halsted Street looks like Beirut, but people are still flocking here," Stein said. "We continued to sell, even during the week of Sept. 11. They come here to buy."
In some high-end, suburban developments, it takes about 75 "lookers," to generate one buyer, Stein said. The ratio at University Village has been closer to 10 to one.
A big draw, he said, is the plan for the University Village Marketplace, a mix of residential, dining, retail and offices in the heart of the old Maxwell Street Market.
Only about 12 percent of the buyers have been from UIC faculty and staff, according to Terrie Whittaker, sales director.
The others are a "pretty good mix" of young professionals, families and some empty nesters from the suburbs, she said. Many of the buyers are moving up from their first condominiums or town houses on the South Side or West Loop, Whittaker said.
Condominiums have 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms, and 1 to 2-1/2 baths. Sizes range from 671 to 2,200 square feet. Prices start at $165,900 to $397,000. Penthouses range from $329,900 to $625,900, and have either one or two terraces.
The town houses have 3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 or 3-1/2 baths and 2,154 to 3,000 square feet of space. Prices range from $415,000 to $700,900.
Twenty-one percent of the units in each sales phase are reserved for the development's affordable housing program, she said. This program assists buyers who might not otherwise qualify for a mortgage, she said.
All of the housing types in all of the buildings are available in the program, Whittaker said.
In response to preservationists, eight of the old buildings along the east side of Halsted, north and south of Maxwell, are being renovated, according to Larry D. Justice, project executive for the South Campus Development Team.
The facades of 12 other buildings have been taken down and will be added to new construction on Halsted and on Maxwell.
"This is nice adaptive re-use," Justice said. "These buildings, that we are saving, will have retail on the first levels and university offices on the second and third."
Some 340 students have already moved into new residences at 811 W. Maxwell, on the southwest corner of Halsted and Maxwell, where the urban bazaar one stood. An additional student building next door will house another 415 students.
In Lincoln Park or Lake View, the new building could pass as pricey condominiums.
"These aren't dormitories," Justice said. "They are apartments with 2 bedrooms and private baths and kitchens. They are a lot different than when we went to college.
"The students who live here call themselves the 'pioneers.' You can see why," Justice said, as he stood in front of the shiny new building in the midst of the construction zone.
Mark Rosati, the UIC director of public affairs, said the new South Campus is part of the long-range plan to accommodate changing student needs.
"We had a waiting list of almost 800 students who wanted on-campus housing," Rosati said. "This has been the case for years. We have known for some time there is a significant demand. As of last year, we had about 10 percent of the 25,000 students living on campus. Our goal is to have 25 percent by 2012."
Most of the students in the new housing are juniors and seniors because returning students have a priority, he said. Last year, about 87 percent of the entire student body came from Illinois and 64 percent of those came from Cook County, Rosati said.
The university opened in 1965 as a branch of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. It merged with the Medical Center campus in 1982 to become the University of Illinois at Chicago.
University Village is not intended to be an academic enclave, Justice said, but a new part of the neighborhood. A system of public parks will run through the residential area to open up use of the land to the community, he said.
"The university has very active community outreach," Justice said. "So, if you came out here on an afternoon, you could see a neighborhood soccer team using their field. The city, in terms of their objectives, wanted to have this park system."
The entire area will be extensively landscaped and planted, he said. A system of pathways will connect the various academic, residential and business sections, Justice added.
The first private residents and the first of the stores are scheduled to move in early next year, he said.
About 40 people a day are making the trip through the street repairs to the big sales center at 1440 S. Halsted, Justice said.
"What concerned us was that, over all, it didn't look very good down here, yet," Justice said. "But, people are purchasing here. We have contracts from all over the six-county area, which gives us the impression that this continues the trend of back-to-the-city.
"The people coming here to the sales center really react to this as a master planned community, not as an infill project," Justice said.
* University Village, 1440 S. Halsted. South Campus Development Team, (312) 421-4300.
Return to the Maxwell St. News Update page.
Return to the Maxwell St. page.
Return to Chuck Cowdery's home page.
Go to Steve Balkin's Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition home page.
Contact Us
TO REACH US VIA EMAIL:
info@maxwellstreet.org
TO REACH US VIA THE USPS:
Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition
P.O. Box 6435
Evanston, IL 60204