Shipping container homes proposed for South Side

Vincennes Village is planned for Greater Grand Crossing

Vincennes Village's Darryl Burton and Anthony Casbini, rendering of proposed homes for Greater Grand Crossing on the South Side (Vincennes Village)
Vincennes Village's Darryl Burton and Anthony Casbini, rendering of proposed homes for Greater Grand Crossing on the South Side (Vincennes Village)

Chicago may get its first multiple-home development made from shipping containers.

Darryl Burton and Anthony Casbini have proposed building Vincennes Village on the South Side in Greater Grand Crossing, Crain’s reported. The first of two phases would include a dozen houses and potentially add eight more in a second phase.

The homes will each consist of five shipping containers, have three or four bedrooms and measure about 1,800 square feet. Each home will sit on a standard Chicago lot and is expected to be marketed for $300,000.

They will be “colorful, with industrial materials and a lot of light,” Burton told the outlet. Preliminary designs show houses with a mix of different exterior walls, rooftop decks, breezeways and attached garages.

Building with shipping containers is often cheaper than using traditional materials and is faster. Shells arrive on site pre-built, allowing for the home to be built in about six weeks, Burton said. Still, some developers and architects say shipping containers aren’t the best use for homes because insulating them is harder.

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Within the last year, 26 homes in Greater Grand Crossing sold for between $270,000 and $325,000. Burton told the outlet that the shipping container homes will add to a limited inventory of homes for sale “and they’re going to look better than an old vintage house that got fixed up.”

The developers held a ceremonial groundbreaking in Ju e at the site at 72nd Street and Vincennes Avenue. Work on the foundations began in August after the city approved that stage of the project.

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— Victoria Pruitt