Monday, October 28, 2013

Changes Proposed For Broadway Building

Now

Future?

Upgrades for the 4600 block of Broadway?  Yes, please! Truman Square Neighbors ran this item on their Facebook page:

"A couple members of the TSN Board met with Abby from the alderman's office and a developer, Mike Krueger [of Lakepointe Properties], who owns [the] 4635-41 Broadway building. The rendering is what he envisions after rehabbing it. He would keep the exterior as is, but wants to add another story to the top of it. Right now it is 16 apartments of varying sizes, and he would like to make it 15 2br/1ba units and upgrade the interior, including 4000sf of retail at ground level, which he would like to have his business office as part of.

It needs a zoning change, but because it is under $10MM, it does not have to go before the 46th Ward Zoning & Development Committee. Mike Krueger is the same developer who rehabbed the building across the street where Spoil Me Salon is, and we have heard good things from neighbors about the apartments there. It would be all market rate, and he hopes to get some special retail tenants.

He has a proven track record and answered our questions to our satisfaction. He would not put in another level in the future. He would like to take this to the city in November, so if you have any questions, please post them here and we will try to get answers for them."

UU Note:  This building has a rather [cough] storied history over the past few years, which is one of the reasons a rehab would be much welcomed.
  • In February of 2010, the CPD busted a Vice Lords party taking place there, and came away with guns, drugs and arrests.
  • In May of 2010, then-owner Muhammad T. Siddiqi was brought into Housing Court and the building was declared a Drug & Gang House by the City of Chicago.
  • In December of 2011, an escaped convict from South Bend, Indiana decided to hole up with friends there while on the run.  Unfortunately for him, the authorities anticipated his decision, which led to a barricade situation that shut down the Red Line and led to a very tense night in Uptown.
  • In May of 2012, the alderman's office sent out a notice that the building had been foreclosed on and was being marketed for sale by the bank who owned it.  The tenant who hosted the convict involved in the barricade situation was evicted.
  • On a much nicer note, this summer the Wake Up! Waltz dancers performed on the rooftop of this building and also at the one across the street, both owned by Lakepointe Properties.

14 comments:

  1. This would certainly be nice! This place right now is quite the eyesore, but I think has tremendous potential and appeal, being right outside of a soon-to-be rehabbed CTA station. (ie looking better may entice some more out-of-neighborhood Target shoppers to check out some stores here, spend more time, money, etc in the neighborhood. The current state of these buildings I can't imagine does much to encourage that.) The building housing Spoil Me Salon looks great!

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  2. This is great news! I truly hope they renovate that eyesore of a building and that all the other neighboring follow along as well.

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  3. I do agree that this stretch of Broadway needs some MAJOR cleaning up and has the potential to be a connecting strip between Andersonville and Lakeview. However, to add a 4th floor to a stretch of buildings (and surrounding neighborhood) where everything is 3 floors just does not keep with the aesthetic of the neighborhood.

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  4. Always with the "it's too tall" naysayers. This is a major urban center....buildings are of moderate height. What "aesthetic" are we referring to here?

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  5. I sincerely hope this happens and soon- It seems there is a lot of construction happening lately. This small strip is so awful. This is the best news !!! I cannot wit for Wilson and Broadway look like a decent place to walk down.

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  6. @Mindy- It's only a matter of time. Gigio's has some issues. In two years this strip will cease to exist..I hope its all demolished sooner.

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  7. Id like to see the City Sports and Family Dollar redeveloped (as well as the rest of that block).

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  8. Please tell me the wig shop won't be touched !!!

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  9. Finally! I live right across this building and this place has been the source of trouble for years. Theft, drugs, noise, prostitution, drunks using the back alley as toilets, you name it: it is all happening there.

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  10. Whatever @citizenKEN I hope you are wrong. Those of us who have lived here for 35 plus years will try to put a stop to that.

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  11. MIndy get off your hobby horse. Gigio's wasn't even in Uptown when I moved here when the prairie dogs sang and the buffalo ate wildgrasses where cricket hill now stands. Gigio's moved to Uptown around 1992 and Cricket Hill was "built" in 1987 from the detritus of broken dreams that occurred upon the election of your former employer, Helen Shiller.(Seriously folks, while I predate Gigio's I don't predate Cricket Hill. The hill was built in 1948 and I wasn't here then.)

    I don't recall what that storefront was pre Gigio's.

    Now I happen to like Gigio's and I hope it survives because when I have a hankerin for a soft wettish slice of NYC with a bit of something resembling cheese on grease I head to Gigio's.

    On a more serious note Uptown future will have room for Gigio's and whatever positive changes occur. While it may be possible to have too many pizza joints, theoretically of course, I've never seen it happen.

    As for Ken I suggest he be careful around Mindy. Sure she may dress up like a left wing condiment and march on the Alderman's office with the rest of the nostalgic for the Uptown of 1990 angina suffering leftist horde, but if her life were made into a movie it would be called "Uptown Confidential".

    I of course would narrate the movie as the "Voice of Chicago" and when Mindy first appeared on the screen I would warn in my most ominous nasal tone:

    "Dangerous Curves Ahead".


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  12. Oh and the tagline for the movie would be:

    "At the intersection of Broadway and Sin".

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  13. thank god gigio's will remain unscathed

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