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Ald. Moreno Wants Public to Weigh in on 'Wicker Park Connection' Tuesday

By Alisa Hauser | February 15, 2016 7:27am
 Latest designs for the Wicker Park Connection, a project combing a 144-unit apartment tower, 17 townhomes and 38 condos just west of the Ashland Avenue and Division Street intersection.
Wicker Park Connection, Feb. 3, 2016
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WICKER PARK — After earning the approval of a local neighborhood group earlier this month, the proposed "Wicker Park Connection" — a 200-unit transit-oriented development near the CTA Blue Line Division "L" stop — will gather more community feedback at a meeting hosted by Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) on Tuesday.

Divided into "family-friendly" townhomes, apartments and condos, Centrum Partners' project will be the focus of a public meeting set for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.

On Friday, Moreno said he has still not made a decision on whether he would support the plan, which was introduced six months ago and scaled down from the earliest proposal that called for 275 apartments.

The development's 144-unit apartment tower would be 11 stories on the Division-facing side and four stories taller than that at the rear of the structure.

The Wicker Park Connection site sits next to a new 60-unit apartment building under construction at 1664 W. Division St. and across from an 11-story, 99-unit building at 1611 W. Division St. 

The largest proposed development for the area in recent memory, the plan would create a path of homes anchored by retail storefronts and possibly a private school in the 1600 block of West Division Street and the 1200 block of North Milwaukee Avenue.

The 77,537-square-foot development would be connected by a serpentine-shaped, pedestrian-friendly pathway, with about one-third of the path incorporating open space.

Wicker Park Connection Site Plan and Landscaping. [Hirsch Associates]

The goal of the heavily landscaped open space would be to enhance the area as a safe gathering spot, with security and accent lighting. Currently, many residents walk to and from Milwaukee and Division using the vacant land as a shortcut, but it is not very populated.

In addition to the transit-orientated apartment tower, the plan offers 17 town homes and a seven-story, 38-unit condo building. Each of the townhomes will have a two-car garage; the 38 condos will each have one parking spot; and residents of the 144-unit apartment tower would share 58 parking spaces in the building's basement.

Designated transit-oriented housing developments are allowed to have fewer parking spaces per unit.

In the rental tower, most of the units are studio or one-bedroom apartments and one-fifth are two- and three-bedroom units. There will be 20 onsite apartments for lower-income renters, in compliance with the city's Affordable Requirements Ordinance. That ordinance mandates that certain new buildings over 20 units either allocate 10 percent of their units as affordable housing or pay $100,000 per unit to a city-managed trust fund that helps to develop low-income housing elsewhere.

If everything goes as planned, construction would begin at the end of this year and the homes would be ready in spring 2018.

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