New Affordable Housing Development Set for Chicago Area
Construction has begun on a mixed-use project offering 72 units in Maywood, Ill.
Fifth Avenue Apartments. Image courtesy of HED
Interfaith Housing Development Corp., a longtime Chicago-based nonprofit community housing development corporation, is continuing its mission of providing affordable housing for the Chicagoland area with a new $19.3 million development. The five-story, mixed-use project will offer 72 units in the suburb of Maywood, Ill.
Located about 12 miles west of downtown Chicago, construction has begun on Fifth Avenue Apartments and is slated for completion by February 2021. McShane Construction Co. is handling construction and HED is the architect of record.
The building, located on a 33,000-square-foot lot formerly owned by the village of Maywood, will have studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units on the top four floors and nearly 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. Some residential units will have two bathrooms. The community will serve low-income families and individuals with incomes under 60 percent of Area Median Income.
Perry Vietti, IHDC president, told Multi-Housing News the ground floor will also have a community room for meetings and parties, laundry room, storage, property management office and social services space. IHDC is seeking a grocery store to lease the retail space as required under the zoning, he said. The development will also have a landscaped backyard and 32 parking spaces.
“Our model has always been to build the housing that the community wants,” Vietti told MHN. IHDC has created 17 affordable housing developments over the past 27 years, including 789 units of permanent supportive housing and 75 transitional units throughout the Chicago area.
Financing Details
Vietti said the Maywood project is being financed by a variety of sources including a $12.7 million construction bridge loan from Bank of America and 9 percent low-income housing tax credits that were syndicated by The Richman Group Affordable Housing Corp., which brought equity into the deal.
Fifth Avenue Houses is also receiving a 20-year $1.7 million first mortgage from the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) and a 30-year $1.6 million loan from Cook County. Both are being funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program that provides formula grants to states and localities to use, often in partnership with nonprofit groups like IHDC, to build or rehabilitate affordable housing units.
IHDC is a designated Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) under the HOME program. A minimum of 15 percent of a government jurisdiction’s HOME funds must be awarded to CHDOs, Vietti said.
The building is designed to achieve National Green Building Standard’s Bronze Level and receive ComEd’s Energy Efficiency Grant for affordable housing. The property will have numerous sustainable features including a high-performance HVAC system, windows with a low U-factor, efficient insulation and LED lighting.
The building will have a structure of precast and metal-studs, which is unusual for multifamily projects but gaining in popularity because precast is faster and more efficient to install, more cost-efficient and allows for finishes to be installed directly on panels, according to information from McShane Construction. The firm noted it provided design/build subcontractors for the precast and HVAC, which helped reduce costs for IHDC.
Vietti said IHDC has several new projects in various stages of planning. One is Ogden Park Apartments, which will provide 25 units of supportive housing in the former St. Brendan’s Parish convent in the West Englewood neighborhood of Chicago.
