The Chicago Plan Commission on Thursday approved a proposed affordable housing development in a South Side area that hasn’t seen new family housing in about 75 years. Developer Leon Walker told commission members that the $26 million effort, part of the INVEST South/West program started by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, could spark further development around a forgotten corner of the lakefront.
“One building cannot solve all the difficulties and challenges a neighborhood suffers from, but we are starting the process,” said Walker, managing partner of DL3 Realty.
The plan calls for a six-story building, known as Thrive Exchange, at the corner of 79th Street and Exchange Avenue, next to a Metra stop and on the border between the South Shore and South Chicago neighborhoods.
This first phase of the development, which still needs approval from the full City Council, will provide 43 affordable one- and two-bedroom apartments, about four studio apartments, ground-floor retail, a public plaza facing the Metra tracks, widened sidewalks and new offices for Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, a nonprofit that promotes homeownership.
It’s not the easiest area to launch a pricey new development. On a Sunday afternoon in March 2022, a car pulled up to a strip mall on Exchange Avenue, and from inside the car many shots were fired at a group near a Little Caesar’s Pizza, wounding seven. The violent incident led Walker to have some second thoughts.
“Friends asked, Leon, are you still going forward, and I did take a pause,” Walker told commission members, although he quickly decided what the neighborhood needed was new housing and businesses. “I said, yes, we are moving forward. You need investment to change things, and it takes this kind of large-scale investment to make an impact.”
Walker hopes to start construction next year, and local entrepreneurs say they are looking forward to the new development.
“It will bring in new neighbors, and that definitely won’t hurt my business,” said Dwan Stevens-Martin, a Woodlawn resident and owner of Urban Luxe Cafe at 2911 E. 79th St., just west of the Thrive Exchange site.
She plans to fully open by mid-December and sees Urban Luxe becoming a neighborhood gathering spot, providing customers with a conference room, selling gourmet sandwiches, coffee, and hosting live music and spoken word performances.
“South Shore is a historic, culturally rich and beautiful neighborhood, right on the lakefront, but right now there is not a place that provides the kind of atmosphere we will,” she said.
The commission gave unanimous support to Walker’s plan, but member Guacolda Reyes said she would prefer to see affordable housing developments include units with three or more bedrooms, since large families struggle the hardest to pay rent.
“I think we need to be more targeted,” she said.
Like all INVEST South/West projects, the funds for Thrive Exchange come from a complex stew of sources, including TIF dollars and tax credits.
Although the development will be for households making 60% of the area median income, Walker said it will include a second-floor fitness center and lounge, and the apartments will be comparable to ones renting for at least $3,000 a month in more upscale areas. That will make it a costly project, more than $600,000 per unit, but he envisions it becoming a neighborhood anchor.
“We can attract the families and professionals who will become homeowners in the next phase of the plan,” he said.
Walker wants to construct in the next phase another affordable apartment building on the other side of 79th Street, and transform the historic Ringer Building at 7915 S. Exchange Ave. into a health care center, while Revere Properties, a Thrive Exchange co-developer, plans to build an affordable condo development on a nearby vacant lot.
“They can’t get going until we get going,” Walker said.
