Story on Drexel Boulevard

This is great news! Drexel is gorgeous. Boom on the boulevard Developers take on Drexel, whether mansion or multifamily Advertisement House - Content Promotion By Jeanette Almada Special to the Tribune February 27, 2005 When Juan Isabelle prepared to relocate his family to the city from south suburban Lansing three years ago, he happened upon Drexel Boulevard. "I didn't know how we were going to get there, but I just knew we were going to get there," Isabelle said of the once-grand South Side street. "We looked in the South Loop, in the West Loop and some South Side neighborhoods. But when we found this [apartment at 47th Street and Drexel Boulevard] we knew we were home. "Living on Drexel Boulevard is a dream. What's so exhilarating is the history -- the history of architecture, the history of culture. It is a very prominent street to live on," Isabelle said. For decades, this jewel of Chicago's boulevard system was anything but a draw -- its mansions deteriorating alongside vacant lots. Now, Drexel Boulevard is experiencing a renaissance -- and it's long overdue, many South Siders say. "It is one of the premiere boulevards in the city, some of the most beautiful buildings in our area are on Drexel Boulevard," Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) said of the 2-mile stretch between the fountains -- at Oakwood Boulevard on the north and Hyde Park Boulevard on the south. All three streets are part of the city's boulevard system, designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 1800s. Developers are rehabbing old mansions and other homes, as well as multifamily buildings up and down the boulevard. The grand old buildings have lured developer interest, if not investment dollars, for decades. The John A. McGill Mansion at 4938 S. Drexel Blvd. was slated for demolition in 1979, when developer Robert King fell in love with the regal shell-of-a-building. He bought it and rehabbed it into an apartment building. "The copper had been stripped from the roof, and so the roof was caving in. The wainscoting, antique tiling, carved balustrade, handrails and fireplaces all had been stripped away. It actually deserved to be demolished," King said of the building. He converted the building into 34 condominiums in 2001. An even greater indication that Drexel is turning a significant corner is the substantial new construction on the boulevard's large number of vacant, city-owned lots. The city acquired the lots individually as buildings on them became vacant and dangerously decrepit. Most of the vacant lots along Drexel are between 48th Street and Oakwood. Construction has started or will start by spring on more than 200 units on a dozen of those former city parcels, according to James Wilson, a Chicago Department of Planning and Development project manager. He works with Preckwinkle and the North Kenwood/Oakland Community Conservation Council to select development projects for the area. Another 100 units will go up along the boulevard by year-end in projects for which land sale deals are in the city's approval pipeline, according to Wilson. "And we are still in the process of looking for developers or negotiating with developers for several large and moderate-sized parcels," Wilson said. He conservatively estimates that by the end of the decade more than 400 units of housing will have been built on the city's vacant parcels on Drexel. The convergence of vacant land and developer interest seemed serendipitous to city planners at first. "As developers became interested in building on Drexel Boulevard, we realized at some point that the [parcels they wanted to buy] were key sites, that we had the opportunity to bring grandeur back to the boulevard and we raised the bar for architecture and quality," Wilson said. "Once we realized that we had a lot of land there, we took the opportunity to hold developers to higher standards," Preckwinkle said. "The mass and design of projects already being built there, as infill housing, are really reflective of and complementary to the beautiful streetscape. They are projects that mirror and respect the grandeur of the boulevard." The 137-unit Jazz on the Boulevard project significantly steps up the momentum of redevelopment, according to Denise Casalino, Department of Planning and Development commissioner. "It is going up on several blocks of the boulevard [between 41st Street and 42nd Place] and will have significant prominence and presence," Casalino said of the $35 million project that is named to recall the boulevard's jazz era heyday. Forty of the first 59 Jazz on the Boulevard units under construction have been sold, according to David Chase, president of the Thrush Cos., Chicago, which is co-developing the project with Granite Development and Century Place Development Corp., also of Chicago. The development's mix of building styles reflects a diversity of architecture that went up along Drexel over time, according to Chase. "Up and down the boulevard, you see single-family homes with undulating facades . . . and interesting features that provide context and texture. But over time multifamily buildings went up and they are relatively monolithic. You can't ignore them," Chase said. Jazz on the Boulevard buildings include flat-topped, multifamily buildings, as well as rowhouses and townhouses that "clearly resemble more of the architectural features of larger single-family homes. They have half-levels below grade and have beautiful bay [windows], articulated with brick and stone. Some are arched and some are square," Chase said. Developers building on the city's parcels collaborate closely with Preckwinkle and city planners, according to Wilson. "We examine the block around a potential development site, study historic buildings on that block, and then sit down with the developer and try to guide development regarding what is already on that block," he said. "If there is a graystone adjacent to their development site, we look for architectural detail in the new building that complements details on the adjacent building." Many of those developers have proven to be nimble at building historic-compliant buildings in previous projects throughout the North Kenwood neighborhood. Jenny Builders, which is building two projects on Drexel; Sutherland/Pearsall Development Corp., building five projects; and Thrush have all built several projects on the South Side. Twenty-six years after he bought McGill Mansion, King is building 10 townhouses to the east and west end of the mansion's nearly 1-acre lot. "When I bought the mansion, the city gave me the right to add the townhouses once a market discovered the boulevard," King said. Juan Isabelle bought a four-bedroom townhouse at Sutherland/Pearsall's Drexel Square project, under construction at 4450 S. Drexel. "It is evident that some of the past richness and history is coming back, is being filtered back into the area," Isabelle said of the amount of redevelopment. He expects to occupy his townhouse by early next year. Isabelle also is satisfied that his $420,000 townhouse represents a good deal. "We thought our price was very reasonable, since we will be across the street from single-family homes that are currently selling for prices from $600,000 to $650,000," Isabelle said. "It seems like North Kenwood/Oakland is really hot, but Drexel in particular is getting a lot of interest from buyers," said Mark Sutherland, partner in Sutherland/Pearsall. "We are selling our units faster than we can build them to a wide range of buyers. They are coming from the suburbs and from the North Side, where things have gotten expensive. Many of them grew up in the neighborhood and moved to the North Side or Evanston or to the south suburbs. Now they want to come back. A lot of them work at the University of Chicago or at one of the hospitals in the area." South Siders who are building along the boulevard say the resurgence was always in the mail. "I was born and raised at 51st and Woodlawn Avenue and wanted to live on Drexel Boulevard," said Andrew Dibble, a developer who will move with his family into one of six houses he is building at 47th Street and Drexel, on land he bought from the city. Dibble is negotiating with the city to buy a parcel on Drexel at 43rd Street, where he will build 65 to 70 units, according to Wilson. "I have watched the whole North Kenwood area come back to life and Drexel Boulevard seems like a culmination of that process," said John Jones, a young developer from Hyde Park who's Blueprint LLC is building nine three-story townhouses that will wrap around the northwest corner of 48th Street and Drexel. "Now the area west of Drexel is coming up as well, though properties going up there are selling for prices about 10 to 20 percent less than similar properties in North Kenwood and on Drexel Boulevard," Sutherland said. With an inventory of vacant land west of the boulevard, the city is cultivating a master plan for the area, according to Wilson. "We are taking developer names and numbers while we work on a master plan for mixed-use development along Cottage Grove Avenue between Pershing Road and 51st Street," Wilson said.>