CHICAGO—About ten years ago, the University of Chicago decided that it would take a more active interest in the Hyde Park community and attempt to make 53rd St. into a true destination for shopping, dining and other retail. Those efforts have started to bear fruit and should soon start bringing the once-sleepy neighborhood national attention.
As reported in GlobeSt.com, a development team hired by the university which includes Avison Young, Peak Campus Development and Blue Vista Capital Management has started construction on Vue53 – a 267-unit mixed-use project on 53rd St., a complement to Harper Court, a newly-constructed 223,775 square-foot complex at 53rd St. and Lake Park Ave., another university project.
“Harper Court was really the catalyst for change on 53rd St.,” Avison Young principal James Hanson tells GlobeSt.com. Hanson was a principal with Chicago-based Mesa Development, LLC, which Avison acquired in April. And Vue53 will add even more vitality to 53rd St. and help make it one of the city's top retail streets south of Roosevelt Rd.
“We want to activate the street with good, quality retail and add to what's happening further east with Harper Court,” he adds. The university signed a 20-year master lease for the office space at that complex, bringing in hundreds of employees. “And in addition to City Hyde Park,” the Jeanne Gang-designed community at 51st St. and Lake Park Ave., “Vue53 is probably the first modern, new rental housing that has been developed on this scale in Hyde Park for 30 or 40 years.”
Hanson also believes that Vue53 will reflect the neighborhood's values, an important consideration when developing communities here. The developers participated in many meetings with residents, he says, and one thing that was emphasized was their desire to see diversity and more affordable housing so those with less economic means were not forced out of Hyde Park. The city would have required 10% of the units at Vue53 be reserved for affordable housing, but the developers decided to boost that number to 15%. Furthermore, the university agreed to build another set of affordable units, equal to 5% of the 267 units at Vue53, at other sites in the neighborhood.
Although the university will neither own nor operate Vue53, “we think a lot of the residents will be people associated with the university,” Hanson says, including employees and graduate students, meaning they will live, work and shop in the neighborhood, helping fuel the 28,000 square feet of ground-level retail. “We want people who have a reason to stay in Hyde Park during the day.” And the recent decision by President Obama to build his presidential library nearby will merely bring even more attention and economic activity. “A lot of trends are coming together to create a lot of excitement about Hyde Park.”
Jeff Githens, senior vice president of Peak Campus Development, tells GlobeSt.com that his company's recent experience in Charlottesville, VA, at the University of Virginia, convinced them that Vue53 would be financially viable. In 2013, the company finished the first phase of Pavilion at North Grounds, a 230-unit development that has filled up with young people, graduate students and university employees, the same three groups they hope will live in Vue53.
Serving all three populations at the same time “has been done before but on a limited basis,” Githens says. And it takes a unique set of circumstances to make this work. The university needs a sizable population of graduate students, and there has to be a suitable location proximate to the school in a neighborhood with a lack of available class A rental housing.
All of these factors are present in both Charlottesville and Hyde Park, he adds. As an added bonus, “the University of Chicago has been focused on transforming 53rd St. into a vibrant commercial corridor.”
Taken together, Hanson says, these sizable new mixed-use projects are helping “Hyde Park really hit its stride and become much more visible on a national stage.”
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