Senior Housing Plan Gets TIF Boost

The financial assistance, which also will reduce the property taxes paid by Technical Assistance Corporation for Housing by half, was recommended recently by the community development commission. The developers hope to break ground this spring.

However, the project already is getting a boost by Advocate Health Care, which is donating five acres to the developers, which includes Catholic Charities Housing Development Corp. That group, which is not seeking tax increment financing assistance, plans a 103-acre building at the northeast corner of the site of the former Martha Washington Hospital and hopes to break ground in the fall.

A third building is planned for the former hospital site, but a developer has yet to be identified, according to the department of planning and development. The entire project ultimately is expected to add 300 units of affordable and market-rate senior housing in the North Center community.

"It will be one of the first developments with a true campus setting in the middle," says John LaMotte of the Lakota Group, which consulted on the project. "We've got a true senior campus in the plans."

Not only is there a need for affordable and market-rate senior housing in the community, suitable sites for development also are scarce.

"This is the single most important project in the 47th Ward," says Alderman Eugene Schulter, who was involved in negotiations with Advocate Health Care on the land donation. "Without Advocate's generosity, we wouldn't find ourselves in the position to break ground on affordable housing in the 47th Ward."

"It was remarkable that he was able to get a donation from Advocate for five acres," says department of housing commissioner John Markowski.

Two of three vacant buildings must be demolished before work begins, and environmental remediation is expected to push the cost of that project to nearly $3 million, according to the Department of planning and Development.