Cabrini-Green Redevelopment Advances With New Developers

The Chicago Housing Authority picked another developer to take on one of the city’s most storied pieces of real estate, replacing a team that collapsed under financing woes.

Evergreen Real Estate Group and KLEO Enterprises, working as Cabrini New Vision, will lead redevelopment of a 7-acre site at Clybourn Avenue and Larrabee Street, near the footprint of the demolished Cabrini-Green towers, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The housing authority approved the plan last week, several months after Hunt Development Group and its partners abandoned the deal when they couldn’t secure funding, according to the CHA.

The property, at 1450 North Larrabee Street, is a wedge-shaped parcel once home to Near North High School, which closed in 2001 and was demolished last year. The last Cabrini-Green high-rise came down in 2011, clearing the way for a redevelopment process that has sputtered for more than a decade.

The location is slated for mixed-income housing, with at least 180 CHA-subsidized units under a long-term lease. The previous team proposed 750 units, then pivoted to a 480-unit mid-rise plan, but failed to secure financing.

KLEO founder Torrey Barrett was previously part of Imagine Development, a partner on Hunt’s failed bid. Imagine has since dissolved, but Barrett said the Cabrini opportunity pushed him to team up again, this time with Evergreen. The duo recently completed the Auburn Gresham Apartments on the South Side, turning city-owned land into affordable housing.

Evergreen, which has built CHA-backed projects across Chicago for more than a decade, is making its first foray into redeveloping a former public housing site. Director of Development David Block said the team intentionally structured a different proposal from Hunt’s, mindful of interest rate volatility and shifting construction costs that have tripped up recent projects.

The plan calls for roughly 450 rental apartments spread across four buildings, with 180 units subsidized by the CHA, plus another 75 condos and townhomes. Market-rate housing makes up a larger share than Hunt’s proposal, which Block said is a reflection of Chicago’s resilient rental market compared to overheated boomtowns like Austin.

Financing is the central hurdle. Evergreen and KLEO expect to layer low-income housing tax credits, tax-increment financing, grants and other subsidies to make the project feasible. The developers are also eyeing ways to expand the number of for-sale townhomes on site.

The project would mark the most significant addition of housing at the Cabrini-Green site since the CHA began demolishing the infamous towers more than 20 years ago.

— Eric Weilbacher