Chicago, IL, United States
Humboldt Park’s Chicago Avenue lays within the West Humboldt Park section of the neighborhood. The Avenue holds key historic significance to both the community of Humboldt Park and the City of Chicago as a cardinal street that extends from Lake Shore Drive to Chicago’s western limit at Austin Boulevard, and beyond into the west suburban communities.
Historically, in part due to the “Great Migration” of black southerners, Chicago Avenue was known as the one of the northern limit lines of the Chicago Black West Side. Since the civil rights era, the avenue has retained a strong ethnic identity for Black Culture. Throughout its history, Chicago Avenue has served as a vital East-West thoroughfare connecting the West Side to the Near North Side and Downtown. This densely developed, mixed-use street has retained some of the grand, ornate, brick laden commercial buildings common in its heyday.
Adjacent neighborhood streets are lined with an eclectic mix of bungalows, two-to three flats, and Greystone buildings. Disinvestment and segregation began to negatively impact the vitality and character of the corridor in the mid-20th century and, today, some of the mixed-use buildings that once lined Chicago Avenue have been replaced by vacant lots, unoccupied buildings, and automobile-centric development. The proposed concept includes new commercial retail spaces, a community amenity space, a new more prominent Westside Hub for NHS, a mixed-use plaza capable of facilitating parking needs or cultural
performances and other community events, and housing.
Located at the heart of the Chicago Avenue corridor, the redevelopment of this site is a chance to transform the surrounding blocks and spark a resurgence of redevelopment around the epicenter of corridor which embraces its rich past and promising future.
AWARDS + RECOGNITION
