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City Approves Somerset Place Rezoning

By Adeshina Emmanuel | January 21, 2013 7:27pm

UPTOWN A zoning change requested for a redevelopment project in the 48th Ward has been approved by the City Council.

Zidan Management Group wants to renovate and reopen the former Somerset Place nursing home as a residential and retail development. Somerset, at 5009 N. Sheridan Road, was closed in 2010 because of patient safety violations.

The rezoning was approved last week by the Committee on Zoning and the full City Council.

More than half of the 160 units planned would be one-bedroom apartments, according to recently released floor plans for the 29,000-square-foot building, which is owned by Somerset Place Realty. Ten percent of the rental units would be offered below the market rate, according to Chicago's Affordable Rental Ordinance.

The development would contain fewer than 30 parking spaces, although Zidan has a deal with the owners of the former AON building in Uptown to offer residents paid subsidized parking there.

The nine-story building would also have about 9,600 square feet of ground-level retail space for lease.

An attorney for the property owner said renovation efforts could start this spring.

Ald. Harry Osterman (48th) has said that the project "is critical to the future revitalization of the Argyle Street area."

Somerset was a nursing home that housed felons and mentally ill patients with elderly patients and was closed in 2010 for various violations.

A resident of the now-defunct facility was found beaten to death in a nearby motel in 2008. Authorities cited a lack of proper supervision of the patient and said staff failed to file a missing person's report or call police when she vanished.