Park Boulevard is another South Side development that’s long overdue for some new construction photos. It’s been more than a year since a Yo writer went down to Bronzeville to snap some shots of Stateway Associates’ mixed-income development, and although the picture above probably is representative of the kind of construction still going on at the project, it sounds like a lot has changed around the intersection of 35th and State streets over the past 12 months.
Almost 150 of the 211 homes planned for Park Boulevard’s first phase are up and either occupied or ready for delivery, says sales manager Norma Baskin. People started moving into their homes last May, and several stores and restaurants including Starbucks Coffee, Jimmy Johns, National City Bank and FedEx Kinko’s have moved into the available retail spaces.
Something I didn’t notice until after I talked to Baskin was that a significant number of sales appear to have fallen through in the past year. Last April we reported that Park Boulevard’s first phase was 50 percent sold. Baskin said yesterday that about one-third of the first-phase homes had sold or were under contract. We’re no strangers to seeing sales estimates drop, but a reduction in the double digits is a little surprising.
Baskin did say that Park Boulevard had yet to see a single foreclosure. Whether that has any relation to the drop in sales number is anyone’s guess – perhaps at-risk buyers thought twice about finalizing their purchases and moved on, resulting in some lower reported figures.
Either way, if Baskin is right, there should be approximately 140 homes available at Park Boulevard right now, ranging in price from the $140s for a one-bedroom condo to the $500s for a four-bedroom / 3.5-bath single-family home with a two-car garage.
Our April 2007 post suggested the second phase of construction would begin sometime in the third quarter of this year. Baskin was a little more vague about the project’s timetable, saying only that Phase II “was on the horizon.”
Below are a couple of undated photos from the Park Boulevard Web site.
