LAKEVIEW — Developers hoping to remodel a former CTA substation into apartments met with little resistance, but neighbors have one condition: Keep your snow out of the alley.
JAB Real Estate hopes to build a nine-unit apartment building at 1044 W. Newport Ave. and is seeking a zoning change to allow for the nine units.
Six duplexes would be on the building's first floor, with three on the second, said architect Mark Sullivan. Apartments would range from 900-square-foot one bedrooms to 1,200-square-foot three bedrooms.
The building's facade would remain mostly the same, although the front door would switch to the left side of the front. A roof deck is also planned, but the building would not get any taller.
The CTA sold the electrical transmission substation to JAB for $1,015,000 in June after listing a minimum bid of $950,000. The CTA bought the building from ComEd in 1964 for $1.
Residents in the central Hawthorne Neighbors group voted to recommend the project to Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) on Tuesday.
The "creative" remodeling provides a way to preserve the 87-year-old structure and the scale of the building while also "activating what's really been a dead spot on Newport for a long time" said Adam Rosa, the newly re-elected president of Hawthorne Neighbors.
Developers volunteered to seek a zoning application that would bind their permit to the plans, preventing them from expanding with additional floors in the future.
They also pledged to keep snow from the building's nine parking spots from getting pushed into the alley, designating an empty area on the property where snow could be placed.
Pending approval of the zoning change, developers hope to break ground in the summer.
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