Ground has broken on an eco-friendly food hub and community gathering space in Englewood.
Chicago officials and community leaders attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the $14 million Englewood Connect development that will replace the vacant 93-year-old Engine Co. 84 firehouse, Block Club Chicago reported.
McLaurin Development Partners is developing the project at 6204 South Green Street. Its CEO Zeb McLaurin said that construction on Englewood Connect will begin “within the next several weeks.”
The 9,000-square-foot project is part of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Invest South/West initiative, which was created to bring more developments to the often overlooked and marginalized West and South side neighborhoods. The city provided $6 million in TIF funding for the project and sold the firehouse and 2 acres of city-owned land to McLaurin for $1.
Lightfoot said the city will publicly and privately invest $2 billion in the 10 Invest South West neighborhoods by the end of this year. That total includes projects that were already likely to move forward without the initiative, like the Healthy Lifestyle Hub in Auburn Gresham, which won $110 million in grants from other sources.
The first phase of the development will involve restoring the long-vacant firehouse and building the Living Room gathering space.
One of the initiative’s chosen projects, the $43 million two-building Auburn Gresham Apartments had a ceremonial groundbreaking, but construction has yet to begin as developers are still securing permits.
“Vertical construction takes, sometimes, years once the shovels start in the ground,” Lightfoot told the outlet. “Anybody that actually knows construction and development knows that this is a very fast pace. In many instances, these would have been years and years in the making, but we know that people need to see progress, and that’s precisely what we’re doing.”
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Mixed-income housing pitched for site near Chicago’s Englewood Square
— Victoria Pruitt