Park Place Homes, which broke ground in the fall at 51st Street and Lawndale Avenue, is meant to entice locals in search of newer, bigger homes to stay in the neighborhood instead of venturing south and west into the suburbs, says Katherine Sather, Director of Marketing at New West Realty. With 200 residences, Park Place Homes is among the largest new-construction, residential developments on the Southwest Side in half a century, she says.
The development falls within the boundaries of West Elsdon, the quiet, residential neighborhood just northeast of Midway Airport. Few new homes have been built in West Elsdon since the neighborhood’s population surged in the ’40s and ’50s, spurring the construction of brick bungalows. Park Place Homes’ condos, townhomes and detached houses were designed in the Prairie style by Pappageorge/Haymes, with brick facades and painted wood trim to blend in with the surrounding structures.
The development will be gated, mostly to protect its one-acre private park, Sather says. There will be 76 two- and three-bedroom condos, ranging in price from just under $220 to the $330s. The 80 three-story townhomes will have two and three bedrooms, ranging in price from the 330s to the 390s.
The 64 single-family houses will only have two stories, but unlike the townhomes they will have basements. The houses have two bedrooms (expandable to three) or three bedrooms. Full pricing information isn’t available for the houses yet, Sather said, but prices start in the $390s. Garages will be both attached and detached, depending on the unit. First deliveries are expected in summer 2008.
Construction is wrapping up now on models, Sather says, with a grand opening likely by March. So far five units have sold.