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If you want something done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself. After reaching a dead end with our “name the developer” post, Mark and I hit up the intersection of Cullerton and Sangamon streets in Pilsen to snoop around those mysterious condos. After gleaning some information from the project’s building permit, I was able to get in touch with Claudia Langman, who’s marketing the development.
It turns out that TRC Holdings and Kedzior Development are behind this development at 946 – 950 W Cullerton St. (Update: We just learned that the project is being marketed as Cullerton Corners.) The condos are going on the market within the next few days, and Langman is holding the project’s first open house from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.
The building, designed by Studio D Architecture, has seven three-bedrooms arranged in a mix of single-floor and duplex layouts, with sizes ranging from 1,047 to 1,984 square feet. Prices run from the $360s to the $460s.
The homes’ standard features include bamboo floors, stone and glass bathroom finishes and balconies extending out from main living spaces. “We chose very high-end finishes, so there’s very little that people will want or need to upgrade,” Langman says.
TRC and Kedzior implemented several green practices during the building’s construction, such as the use of low-VOC paints and formaldehyde-free materials, as well as the installation of tankless water heaters in select units.
Two models are already complete, and every unit should be ready for delivery by late May, Langman says.
Now where are our yo-yos?
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PilsenSlav,
Funny you should mention Maud Street to support your argument. It’s a whole two blocks long rather than a neighborhood the size of Pilsen.
I happen to know the story of Maud pretty well since I did a gut-rehab of a block-long project one block away between Kenmore and Seminary on Armitage and officed and lived in it from 1981 to 1986.
I also owned two lots on Maud that I’d bought for $10k each at a time when lots a short block north on Kenmore and Seminary were selling for $100k+. At the time I also bought options on another dozen lots on Maud and had a talented architect draw plans for single-family homes on the lots that I could build and sell at a profit at prices ranging from $139k to $159k. After years of no takers I sold my lots for $20k apiece (needed the cash) and let the options expire.
Maud’s a story of multiple adjacencies. A block walk to the Armitage El and shops. A short walk to DePaul, etc. etc. All those adjacencies were irrelevant in the minds of buyers who focused on the street itself, its black residents, the Chicago Boiler factory at the north end of it, the blight along the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Sheffield at the time and the barrenness of Clybourn Avenue.
Maud changed only after it had been enveloped by change. It might have changed faster if the few residents had supported my petition to change the name of the street to Winding Oak Lane, but there was a guy who had an aunt named Maude and more influence than I did.
Replicate Maud Street 100 times and you’ve got a fair approximation of Pilsen, but lacking in many of the other factors that retard development in Pilsen. Time will tell us how quickly PIlsen changes. Adjacency tells us nothing about it.
Adjacency has a lot to do with it. The vacant lots you speak of are centered in one corner of Southeast Pilsen that was primarily industrial. Cullerton Corners is not a great location as is. It is kind of desolate. But the location does have potential in the future. Only time will tell just how long it takes.
Your other quips are amusing. In a video last year, you touted location, location, location. Pilsen has location written all over it. It also has a familial relationship to Bridgeport. The two together have more artsy-types than any other part of the city. And why? It’s a relative steal with lots of great spaces. Many people have pointed out the new businesses opening. Those businesses would not be opening if it business owners actually felt that they have an opportunity to do well in the area. Will some fail? Of course. But well-intentioned businesses fail all over the city all of the time. But the new businesses point to an upward shift and a change in demographics. You say that the gentry have very little impact on the neighborhood businesses. Ask the people running those businesses. And then ask yourself why someone would open a restaurant or boutique to cater to outsiders if the outsiders don’t feel safe to begin with? Is Pilsen Disneyland? Of course not. But it has gotten a lot better. Crime is down. Murders, assaults and other crimes are down. If you can dispute that, please do so.
Otherwise, stop slamming a neighborhood you know nothing about.
Wow, my comments are now being blocked!
Ah Joe, Pilsen isn’t as bad as all that. Maud was really wild. We can’t strike a candle to that on our worst street which isn’t as bad as East Village was a few scant years ago at Wolcott and Division. Both directions was a friggin disaster. Even too wild for me! Remember that Street of burnt out junkie ridden violence? I too frequented Maud back in the early 80s. A punk rocker friend lived on a corner in a storefront, I thought it was wonderful, too. A great location which of course it turned out to be.
We basically agree on change but you obviously folded too quickly then and maybe it has made you gun shy. I’m patient. You see change in the immediate I see it over the long haul. My time frames for change are twenty years, a relative blip. Over the long haul Pilsen will be swallowed into the center of wealth. This city, my city, yours, Chicago ain’t going back to those hog butcher days. I hold great hope for the streets of Lawndale. Douglas Park will come back and thrive. Swallow that. So will Garfield. This change will keep going despite the lulls in the Real Estate market, one adjacent area at a time.
Your view of what matters is relevant, I understand that you have no interest in living in the wilds, last time it obviously didn’t work out and some would rather have immediate gratification. I on the other hand like to be a 5 minute bike ride from Grant Park and Abramowicz. I love the new corridor of national shopping options springing up on Roosevelt. I love the Circle Line on the horizon. The Olympic Pool in Douglas Park, the growing IMD. Talk about an institutional anchor, what beats that? You see what was, I see what will be.
Your analysis is too short. Who are those absentees? Lots of the same ones who bought Wicker early, lots of elderly folks who fled but kept the old homestead, and lots of people who live here and own a few. What did they say of the forest for the trees? Pilsen may not be the place of the moment, nor Lawndale, but on the near or far horizon they will be.
One makes money when one buys real estate, not when one sells it. If you buy right you always make money unless you buy the dream but not the land. Even your Maud investment paid off though not as handsomely as it could have.
UICstudent,
It’s a wonder that you’re in college given your level of reading comprehension. Compare your statements about what I’ve said with what I’ve said – no relationship.
You brought up the issue of crime. As I’ve said before the ball’s in your court to back up yuor statements, not in mine to disprove them when I haven’t contested them.
The spam filter nailed one of your comments. Perhaps you mistyped your phony e-mail address or used a different IP address. Our system dumps any new or suspicious commenter into a filter. Nothing was done to block you by anyone here.
PilsenSlav,
You’re setting up a straw man or are completely delusional.
Maud street was not a “wild” place or a tough place, and I was on it hundreds and hundreds of times and a block away from it virtually every day for years. Sorry, but that point of differentiation just doesn’t cut it.
Everything looks different over the long haul. DePaul worked out well for me, despite your imagination of what my experience was there. I did a dozen deals in the area, not just Maud Street.
I began my real estate development career in the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Halsted in 1978 – another area with golden adjacencies. Was in there over a 10-year time frame and did OK, but left with no delusions about the pace of change or the reality of living through it.
You make a very good point of how money is made in real estate – in buying right and in taking a long view. But that’s only part of the game, not the whole of it. Over a 20-year time horizon you’re likely to make money in Pilsen, but that will be true of a lot of places.
Pilsen has many an absentee landlord of a very different sort than WP did, but I’m not going to belabor that point.
The city needs a lot more people with your attitude, and I applaud you for it. Attitude can make things come to pass … sometimes.
You want to make money in Pilsen? That was easy. You didn’t need twenty years for that, you could have done that in weeks. The boom years were full of it. Look at the medians over the past ten years, the speculative slime were out in full force. That’s a part of real estate I have always loathed, take take take. One guy I knew bought and sold over 25 Pilsen area buildings in a few short years, put nothing in, took it all out and only almost got burned on the last few. Almost. The speculative bubble got so severe that my next door neighbor paid 320K for a teardown frame on a short lot. His first house. Pure greed and negligence on the part of the Banking industry. He thought he would “make money”. I tried to tell him as his inspector shook his head. I would have paid 100K to tear it down and have a garden. He instead got a first sub prime at 255K and a second sub prime (both out of California) at 65K with two additonal signatories and the seller, gladly I suppose, paid closing costs. He’d bought it a two years earlier for 65K. I still may buy it for 100K as foreclosure is a likely scenario.
That’s not me. We don’t need to make money from our house. We have careers. While I enjoy the market of real estate I only make money from it by choosing well only if I choose to sell. I think I’ll just retire here and the good by then will be better. This is our third choice of neighborhoods, the two we left (quite profitably) we could never afford anything we wanted in then or now but we sold what wasn’t what we wanted long term at a tidy profit and moved to what we wanted.
We chose Pilsen for many reasons, a great well built intact historic building at a terrific price (6,000 Square feet of glorious Quarter Sawn Oak interiors with massive sized rooms and limestone exteriors at less than $50.00 a square foot), adjacency to transportation, a five minute commute to work in the IMD for my spouse, a short cab to the Opera, a great local grocery store, old friends and community, great access to restaurants, access to Midway Airport, a growing retail base on Roosevelt, the EL, a short bike ride to many speciality food stores, Randolph Street nightlife, a local independent bookstore, walking distance to Maxwell Street market, a short ride to Asian specialty stores, three great fabric stores, Millenium Park concerts, damn good mochas, ready access to great Thrift Stores in Little Village and Bridgeport, ethnic parades including an annual march of Christ, being on the marathon route, emerging artists, the Northwest Train station, Greektown, Little Italy, Chinatown, Healthy Food!, oh and tater tots at Skylark not to mention a fantastic view of one of the last coal burning power plants in it’s final years. Ah, Pilsen. It’s already all good.
On that note, let’s put this thread to rest.
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