Failed Olympics Bid Leaves Neighborhood in Flux

The secret's out! Through that special combination of luck/busting my ass, I wrote a story for the Chicago edition of the New York Times—specifically, for the Chicago News Cooperative.
Chicago News Cooperative

By RACHEL CROMIDAS

For much of Shannon Fischer’s 20 years, community change in her Bronzeville neighborhood has come in the form of a wrecking ball.

First, the Ida B. Wells housing projects fell, then the Robert Taylor homes, and now, within view of her apartment at 33rd Street and Cottage Grove, Michael Reese Hospital is coming down. Destruction can often lead to reconstruction, but hopes that Bronzeville might be revitalized as the site of an Olympic Village died in October when Chicago lost its bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

The neighborhood’s residential market took a severe hit, and developers have put off major investments. Few developers, it seems, can get serious about new projects in Bronzeville until the City of Chicago reveals plans for the landmark Michael Reese site, 37 acres at the heart of a potentially promising lakefront neighborhood.

Ms. Fischer remains optimistic. Even though the blocks in her neighborhood alternate between new condominiums and empty lots, foot traffic is sparse — and the only shopping center consists mostly of convenience stores and an auto repair shop — she believes greater Bronzeville will have its day.

“I think the neighborhood will continue to grow, considering there’s different people, different races and age groups moving in,” Ms. Fischer said.

Bronzeville was once a thriving “black metropolis” with hundreds of black-owned businesses and a booming night life. Its population swelled during the great migration of Southern blacks seeking jobs after World War I.

The poet Gwendolyn Brooks lived there, and in 1945, her first book of poetry — “A Street in Bronzeville” — brought her instant critical acclaim. Other notable residents included Richard Wright, the author of “Native Son,” and the jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong.

The area’s decline began in the 1950s as it gradually lost its middle class and businesses started to close. Though Bronzeville is unlikely to reclaim its golden era, developers like Keith Giles see the potential for new growth, only he does not expect to reach it any time soon.

Last year, Mr. Giles’s firm, Kargil Development, told the city that it was interested in developing the Olympic Village. The project would have helped Olympics promoters realize their vision of a new neighborhood that could bridge the gap between the resurgent Bronzeville community and the South Loop.

“It was an exciting development opportunity for an international event,” Mr. Giles said.

But with the Olympics impetus gone, banks not lending and no other financing in sight, Mr. Giles does not expect action soon on a Michael Reese site that might cost $1 billion to redevelop.

“The development business right now is on sabbatical,” he said.

While Mr. Giles’s company considers another project nearby, it doesn’t expect to see change soon.. “Unfortunately, most everything has stopped,” Mr. Giles said. “There’s new developments on one block, and you go across the street and there’s a burned-out building.”

Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, whose Fourth Ward includes the Reese campus, expects the city to release its plan for the site early this year. She said that a developer might be selected by the end of the year, but that the first buildings would most likely not be completed until 2012.

Ms. Preckwinkle also said developers would “prefer a clear site” around Michael Reese, casting further doubt on the efforts of preservationists who are fighting to save nearby buildings designed in consultation with the architect Walter Gropius, founder of the influential Bauhaus School.

Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, executive director of the Quad Communities Development Corporation, a neighborhood group that serves the Kenwood, Oakland and Douglas neighborhoods that make up greater Bronzeville, said hurdles to development included concerns about crime that are rooted in racial stereotypes.

“We are a neighborhood of color,” Ms. Johnson-Gabriel said. “There’s a perception of crime that obviously doesn’t quite exist here the way it is portrayed.”

Indeed, crime in the Douglas and neighboring Oakland neighborhoods fell steadily over the past decade, according to Chicago Police Department reports. Statistics show a 67 percent decline for Douglas — to 1,074 crimes in 2009 from 3,290 in 1999 — while Oakland’s number fell by more than half, to fewer than 300 from 611.

Some of the city’s larger development groups are pushing ahead despite a lack of clarity about the city’s plans. One, Draper and Kramer, is proceeding on a 70-acre development just south of Michael Reese that it began planning three years ago. In addition to 2,000 high-rise apartment units, the Lake Meadows project will feature renovation of existing rental units and condominiums, construction of single-family town homes and expansion of a small shopping center on the corner of 35th Street and Cottage Grove.

The firm will keep a close eye on the city’s plan for the Michael Reese site.

“We are very interested because it’s a large development and right next door to our property,” said Donald Vitek, vice president of acquisitions and development for Draper and Kramer.

While some residents and developers want officials to move quickly on the city’s plans for the Reese site, Mr. Vitek said a slower pace made sense. It will allow time to survey current community needs, he said, and possibly wait out a soured housing market.

The Douglas neighborhood’s new condos and town homes are selling for as little as $125 a square foot, a steep discount from similar South Loop properties. But Mr. Vitek predicted a steady increase in demand once the market improves.

An Olympics aftershock is hitting the market for existing homes in the neighborhood, too. Pam Dempsey, a real estate broker for Bronzeville Properties, said home sales came to a standstill during the Olympics bidding process, as property owners waited for the decision on a site. Only after the bid failed did they look to sell.

“They’re now entering into a down market,” Ms. Dempsey said. Prices for single-family homes in the area have declined to $100,000 to $200,000 now from $200,000 to $400,000 in mid-2007, she said. A high foreclosure rate has made the Bronzeville downturn worse than what has hit the South Loop or Hyde Park.

“We’ve experienced a lot of really, really deeply discounted foreclosures,” Ms. Dempsey said. “You’ll have a house that needs a ton of work going for maybe $35,000.”

When development does come, she said, Bronzeville will benefit most if the retail part appeals to the same kind of newly affluent residents as those who have moved into the South Loop and Hyde Park.

“Not the fast-food stuff we already have around here,” Ms. Dempsey said, “but nicer retail, like the stuff that came to the South Loop over the past 5 to 10 years. A wine shop or a cafe or bookstores — these things will keep people in the neighborhood.”

Joseph Schwietermann, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, warned against easy comparisons between Bronzeville and the Hyde Park and South Loop neighborhoods. He attributes a combination of poor post-World War II urban planning and Bronzeville’s history of slow growth as factors that have made Bronzeville less successful.

“It’s easier to invest in housing with the hopes that retail will follow,” Mr. Schwietermann said. But, he added, “you can’t assume that if you build it, they will come.”

In October, contractors hired by the city began tearing down the first of seven buildings on the Michael Reese campus slated for demolition. The timeline for development is not urgent, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Community Development said, because the city will not begin making mortgage payments on the property until 2014.

The department envisions a large-scale residential and retail complex with a mixture of affordable and market-rate housing, in addition to dry cleaners, coffee shops and other staple businesses of neighborhood life. Its stated goal is “to build a community from scratch,” and stimulate redevelopment on the lakefront south of McCormick Place.

Byron Lindsey, manager of an auto repair shop, has seen little retail growth around the garage he has managed for nearly 20 years in what is now the Lake Meadows shopping center.

But his business is down only slightly despite the slow economy, Mr. Lindsey said as he juggled a phone in each hand and spoke to customers from behind the counter. He has perceived an influx of higher-income residents over the past five years, which he expects will contribute to a comeback once the economy recovers.

Redevelopment of the Michael Reese property could be the key.

“It could really determine whether the community gets a kick-start on its way back,” Mr. Lindsey said.

Rachel Cromidas is a Chicago freelance writer. Ben Goldberger contributed reporting.