Celadon Holdings breathes new life into aging Maywood building

A 92-year-old building in the western Chicago suburb of Maywood is getting a fresh start.

Construction on the 133,000-square-foot, X-shaped building, at 316 Randolph Street, which yielded 100 residential units, wrapped up last month, the Chicago Business Journal reported.

Developer Celadon Holdings took the lead on the project. The firm’s principal Scott Henry told the outlet historic redevelopments can be tough due to construction and lending challenges, but his firm leans into such projects.

In 2015, the firm redeveloped the former Goldblatt’s department store building on Chicago’s South Side into New City Supportive Living, an assisted-living facility.

For the Maywood project, KeyBank provided a $30 million construction loan for the restoration of the former Central Baptist Home senior residence, which landed on Illinois’ National Register of Historic Places in 2017. The project’s total cost came in at $60 million.

Celadon bought the property last June from Centrust Bank. The building has been vacant since 2005.

Gleason Architects PC spearheaded the design.

The building’s historic status created additional challenges during renovation, which included adding amenities like a movie theater, library and beauty salon.

“When you are working on a historic building like this you have to replace anything demolished exactly the way it was originally,” Jeffrey Reist, with the project’s general contractor Skender, told the outlet. “The entire third-floor façade was a challenge because we demoed it all the way down to the slab.”

Reist said that tasks that seem simple, like replacing windows, also took longer to complete because the team had to submit any planned changes to the state’s National Register to get approval before ordering necessary materials.

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