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Read the press release here.

50 New Homes Will Restart Huge Project On Near West Side

By Stephanie Lulay | June 7, 2017 10:24am | Updated on June 7, 2017 11:48am
 A rendering shows what new town houses in the Roosevelt Square development will look like.
A rendering shows what new town houses in the Roosevelt Square development will look like.
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Related Midwest

LITTLE ITALY — Developers revealed plans for 50 new town houses in Little Italy Tuesday night — the first market-rate housing developed in the stalled Roosevelt Square redevelopment in more than a decade. 

Related Midwest plans to build 50 market-rate, family-sized town houses on West Grenshaw Street between South Loomis and South Lytle in Little Italy, Jacques Sandberg, the firm's vice president, told neighbors Tuesday night. The new town homes will "fill out" vacant land between buildings Related Midwest already has built in the area. 

The 1,800 to 2,500-square-foot, three- and four-bedroom town houses will feature private yards, two-car garages and "very nice" finishes, Sandberg said. They will sell for $650,000 to $850,000, he said. 

"We're looking for families, people who work in the [Illinois Medical District], people who live in the neighborhood now and want to stay," Sandberg said of prospective buyers. 

The new town homes will be the first market-rate units developed in Roosevelt Square since 2005-2006, when the housing market crashed. 

"When the market tanks and you have to stop development, you're left with these missing teeth," Sandberg said. "That's not desirable for the neighborhood, that's not desirable for the people who live in the units that they bought. Our charge is really to start filling in those missing teeth." 

[Related Midwest]

Related Midwest plans to break ground on the 50 town houses this fall. 

Since the late 1990s, efforts aimed at replacing the razed ABLA public housing projects with mixed-income housing have seen a slew of delays.

Renderings released at the end of 2015 for the massive Roosevelt Square redevelopment called for more market-rate housing and potentially taller buildings to be built on the Near West Side. The project will have nearly 3,400 units when it's finished.

RELATED: Could This Huge Project Transform the Near West Side?

The former ABLA Homes complex included the Jane Addams Homes, Robert Brooks Homes, Loomis Courts and Grace Abbott Homes. The Jane Addams Homes opened in 1938 as the first federal government housing project in Chicago. The last remaining building, located at 1322-24 W. Taylor St., has been vacant since 2002 and will be redeveloped into the National Public Housing Museum.

A new Chicago Public Library branch is planned at 1340 W. Taylor St. as part of the CHA's ongoing redevelopment of Roosevelt Square. 

Most of the ABLA Homes were demolished in phases between 2002 and 2007. About 330 Brooks Homes units remain at the site, according to the CHA website.

A map shows where the new town homes will be built. [Related Midwest]