JV Forges Ahead with Chicago Apartment Project
McCaffrey Interests and The Community Builders are working on the pair of buildings forming part of the Southbridge mega-development.
Chicago skyline. Image courtesy of Tony Hisgett via Wikimedia Commons
A joint venture led by developers McCaffrey Interests and The Community Builders have started work on two residential buildings that will include a total of 306 affordable and market-rate apartments, as part of the master-planned Southbridge development in Chicago’s Near South Side.
The multi-phase redevelopment of the former site of the Harold Ickes Homes, a public housing project that was torn down in 2010, is planned for a total of about 877 new homes as well as 65,000 square feet of retail. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) chose the pair of developers for the 11-acre project at the intersection of Cermak and State Street.
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Chicago YIMBY first reported on the ongoing construction of the two residential buildings, 2344 S. State St. and 2310 S. State St., which will each offer a mix of 103 apartments and a top-floor amenity space with a fitness room, community dining space and outdoor terraces. Permits for both buildings were approved in October of last year.
Construction deemed essential
Gensler, Antunovich Associates and Nia Architects designed the transit-oriented development, which will include 6.8 acres of parks, plazas and open space with accessibility to the rest of the city via the CTA Green and Red Line stations just steps away.
A planned groundbreaking ceremony earlier this year was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, but McCaffrey and The Community Builders were able to forge ahead under the state’s stay-at-home order, which permitted residential construction as an essential service.
McCaffrey is a privately owned commercial real estate firm with a portfolio of more than 20 million square feet of office, mixed-use, hotel and residential properties along with large master-planned communities. The Community Builders, a nonprofit developer, owns or manages 11,000 apartments in 14 states.
This past April, the nonprofit in partnership with Valley Community Development Corp. received financing from MassHousing for the construction of a 12-unit affordable community underway in Northampton, Mass.
