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An article in today’s Tribune identifies a new group that is settling (or gentrifying?) Pilsen: “muppies,” or Mexican yuppies. Since Alderman Solis took office 12 years ago, the Near South Side neighborhood has seen a decent amount of new development, sparked largely by the return of the muppies, but all of that will soon be overshadowed with the construction of Renaissance Village, a massive development that is slated to bring 500 residential units and 45,000 square feet of commercial space to the neighborhood in 2011.
Although many Pilsen residents voice opposition to “gentrification,” it isn’t happening here en masse. Scattered, new condominium buildings are priced higher than the older buildings they replaced but are far outnumbered by houses and flats that are 80-plus years old.
“The older places are bought by muppies and yuppies who know they can get a good deal on a place and have rental income, too,” says Miguel Chacon, Pilsen resident and real estate agent with Sheldon Good Brokerage in Chicago. “They grew up here or nearby. They aren’t the people who won’t go south of Madison [Avenue] without an armored car.”
“Some people say, ‘I don’t want the neighborhood to change,’ ” says Chacon. “But then they raise their rent, which of course brings in more professional people.”
Ald. Solis told the Trib that he’s planning some infrastructure improvements for Pilsen, and encouraging restoration of existing buildings.
In a separate story appearing in today’s Gazette, the owner of the controversial Maxwell Street hot dog stand on the corner of 18th and Halsted streets, which Solis and other neighborhood groups have opposed, has said that he would be willing to sell the site for $900,000 to $950,000.
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Another naive effort from the greenhorns at the Trib.
The “girls at Miceli’s” referred to in the article would have a choking fit if anyone tried to tell them Miceli’s was in Pilsen. You can see the girls in my video at YouTube.
And you can see more of not-Pilsen / Heart of Italy / Heart of Chicago at this playlist. “Nobody calls it Pilsen,” says the owner of Ignotz Ristorante, in one of our videos.
It wasn’t naive, it was revealing. Powder puff profile talking of the “vibrant” Mexican community and businesses on “16th” and the muppies. Muppies? Who knew. It was an aldermanic wish list. Not neglected a mention was the “development of the year” the unbuilt Renaissance Village. Reminds me of the last one, Centro 18 with the numbers so stacked against with the affordable set aside that all it needs to revert to farmland is seed. Does anyone for a second believe that college educated Latinas with income to live elsewhere are going to send their children to Perez or raise their kids in harms way? Latino children are at risk living in neighborhoods where ethnic background is a reason to shoot which is why so many leave as soon as they can and the young hipsters move in to live amongst the “cool” aura of poverty. Just your typical timeline to botiques, nightlife, and “luxury” condominiums sans stainless and granite. The story is so old as to be a cliche.
pilsenslav,
As usual, we disagree.
It would take more than seed to revert most any site in Pilsen to farmland. Start with a major detox effort and a couple of feet of rich topsoil. Absent that effort, you wouldn’t want to eat what would grow in Pilsen.
There’s much else we agree on!
I was waiting for you two to comment on this post.
I never heard of “muppie” before.
Guppie,
Buppie.
Yuppie.
Yep.
Years ago when I was thinner and not as ugly a woman referred to me as a YICCUP.
Young Irish Catholic College-Educated Urban Professional.
Those days went away with my hairline.
IrishPirate,
I think Yummie would work better – young upwardly-mobile Mexican.
Or maybe she said Muppets – Mexican urban professionals pimping el Tribune.
They did do the environmental on the majority of the Centro site. It’s farm ready like most of “rurban” Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. It always amused me that the only reason that site existed as manufacturing is that it was a farm and held off the development in Pilsen during it’s first big wave of development after the fire so was “available” for industrial development later on.
But really, the article was total fiction even using ten year old census data as if current. The myth of the muppies who just loves the “culture” and sport of their kids dodging bullets is a comic strip. The Alderman’s daughter was shilling for her desired “muppiedom”. Does she know it is a cliche? I predict she’ll move on, maybe back to River Forest, when she has school aged kids and no doubt, in the funniest scenario, will be running for her father’s position in 2036 when he retires to Jalisco. If she wins she’ll buy a house in Tri-Taylor so she can represent us!
You do amuse me with your reference to the owner of Ignotz who worked for the Alderman’s office for years and is the most bitter man around. Referencing him is a foolournalist’s bad source.
We shall see, in the coming decade, if Chin and his cohorts of Asian Tigers can expand Chinatown into Pilsen. That is the underlying economic possibility and demographic seismic shift to watch round these parts. If University Village, the light Industrial users of Pilsen’s eastern edge and the Asianing of Bridgeport are any indication thay may be the future of this contested “ethnic” enclave.
Great videos Joe. You spend one day in the Heart of Chicago/Pilsen and suddenly, you’re an expert. It’s funny that the owner of Ignotz also refers to the new people coming into his neighborhood. He says they’re out-of-towners like you.
Alderman Solis and his daughter Maya should really think twice before they run their mouths off about preserving the neighborhood as a Mexican enclave before somebody drops a dime on them to the fair-housing police.
And the Slav is right, the Mexicans’ biggest threat might be coming from the Chinese. They really make up for the babies they can’t have at home and they have a really mean gang called the Tong that would reveal the unorganized 18th Street gangs for what they are: unorganized.
Another interesting read from the Trib a day before. I thought this wasn’t happening Zekas?
UICstudent,
You never fail to amuse – or misrepresent.
On the one hand you’re distorting the amount of time I’ve spent in Pilsen, contending it’s insufficient, and on the other touting a story from a reporter who’s likely to have spent far less time there.
You’re hyping the Trib’s reporting without noting that one article tacks Heart of Italy onto Pilsen while another talks about an Italian restaurant finally opening in Pilsen.
The Slav got one thing right for sure about Chicago’s Chinese – they have, to date, bypassed Pilsen and moved in significant numbers to Bridgeport. As did a large volume of other new construction in Bridgeport. So much for that contiguous development meme you keep hyping.
However unorganized you believe Pilsen’s gangs might be, you can’t deny they’ve been massively effective at slaughtering and maiming Pilsen’s children.
As for Thalia Hall – I hope it makes it this time around. It’s had far, far more positive press over the years than positive action.
Out of towners like Zekas?
How long does someone have to live in Chicago to be considered not an “out of towner”.
Stupidity.
As for Pilsen…………the Muppies will save it.
Perhaps there will be a movie: “The Muppies Take Pilsen”. I just looked up the term “Muppies” on “the google” and the most common definition is “Muslim Urban Professional”. Although the Mexican version shows up too. Perhaps there will be a mosque in Pilsen one day.
As for the future of Pilsen I wouldn’t put much credence in the Tribune stories.
As I have stated so eloquently in the past I expect Pilsen will gentrify. It’s the time frame we can disagree on. Gentrification is a decades long process and I find it easiest to look at change in five year increments. Pointing to one or two buildings or businesses is not particularly enlightening. Once a neighborhood starts to gentrify the change is typically not “Linear”. It tends to start and stop with the economy and other more local reasons.
Part of the reason Bridgeport saw more new construction that nearby Pilsen was the local aldercritter. One is pro development and the other wants to keep out “the other”. The game certain aldercreatures play to keep “the other” out is wrong.
Joe, We shall see how the demographic changed in the 2010 Census in the near South and Southwest communities. For now I just have my visual guess to go on. Clearly Chinatown industry has creeped into the eastern fringe of Pilsen and they are a sizeable demographic in “upscale” University Village. It remains to be seen how Chin’s two proposed developments go, if they even get off the ground along soon with the Spice Barrel District, but if they do get built, which eventually as the cylces go around they will whether in 5 years or twenty is anyone’s guess,along with the stalled Centro parcel, they will reinforce the direction this way. Much of the development done by the Chinese in Chicago is of a type that doesn’t appeal to a wider demographic. Those stainless steel doors are a trip.
pilsenslav,
East Pilsen, east of the Dan Ryan and south of the tracks to the river, represents one of the great development opportunities in this or any city. If, that is, the city were to adopt a rational plan for the area and put the resources behind it.
With a decent plan and the right infrastructure – and a different economy – developers from around the country would flock to this near-uninhabited riverfront parcel.
The great and ongoing tragedy of Chicago is that its political system makes this type of development nigh impossible – and virtually bars outside capital and developers from participating.
The area east of the dan ryan that you are referring to is usually called the “Pilsen Arts District” or the “university district” I live in that area myself and have heard to it only referred to as East Pilsen on this website. None of my neighbors kindly take to that term either. But overall, i do agree with you that this is an awesome area to have further development which is what we love about it and can’t wait to see it happen.
pilsenarts,
Not so as to the name. The “Pilsen Arts District” / “Chicago Arts District” is almost entirely west of the expressway, not east. And its official site refers to it as a part of East Pilsen (Pilsen East is its exact reference).
Do a Google search on “Pilsen Arts District” and you’ll get back 54 results. Do the same on “East Pilsen” and you’ll get back over 15,000.
Our usage is by far the more common.
P.S. I obviously don’t live there, but I’ve been a serious buff on Chicago neighborhood names and boundaries for many years and have never, until your comment, heard the area referred to as the University District.
Maya Solis was also recently quoted in TimeOut Chicago:
“You will never see a Starbucks in Pilsen. Over my dead body! That’s what I tell my dad.”
I became curious again what development is in the pipeline or proposed in Pilsen to give me an idea what it may look like in ten to twenty years. To refresh, all of it is big idea stuff, much of it excellent in design and most of it big.
TRP has El Paseo (funded and adjacent to the Loft building which will convert to residential if a developer can fit the parameters of affordability set out by the alderman), Casa Morelos a 45 unit rental, Casa Maravilla (under construction) Senior rental, and La Casa a midrise at the 18th Street El which will be a combined residence hall housing up to 140 area college students.
Chin has the 160,000 SF China Merchandise mart featuring Merchandise showrooms, event facilities, retail and restaurants on Canal from GREC Architects (who were also involved in the Centro 18 plan), Renaissance Village a 400+ residential development and the Spice Barrel district, Athens Construction’s Schonhoefen Brewery restoration is well under way, and the 16th Street corridor has approved proposals for mid rises both in the area between Halsted and Canal and on the other side Ashland to Blue Island in the Roosevelt Square final phase including Lipe’s rental.
Look for an El Line spur to come down the 16th Street Viaduct to connect McCormick to the train grid in the future as the “transit oriented development” of 16th Street gets fully in place with midrises lining both sides of the corridor, the modified Circle line plan which will happen even faster if the Olympics occur.
Intituto Progresso Latino has a modernist expansion in planning on Blue Island, Juarez High School expansion is under contruction, and the stalled Centro 18 is being marketed by CBRE as an approved planned development with TIF subsidy from a proposed TIF district which would take in all of the Commercial corridors in Pilsen to create a 20M subsidy to get what is termed Solis’s “legacy project” done. Costco is also slated for 15th and Ashland as is a new Police Station on the Testa Produce property at 15th and Racine/Blue Island once Testa finishes their 40M dollar distribution center which is under construction.
An impressive list, pilsenslav.
Some of it is even in Pilsen, and some very small portion of what is in Pilsen is actually coming to pass. I missed, for example, the scheduled spring-2007 groundbreaking of the continually-touted La Casa student housing development..
The next Census and redistricting will, more than any other factors, determine Pilsen’s fate. Politics trumps everything else in communities like Pilsen in this town.
I’d like to see IrishPirate weigh in on the question of whether Pilsen is Uptown South, and what implications that might have for Pilsen’s future.
Give me some time Joseph.
I just woke up and realized I lost an hour.
For me it is interesting to see the range of proposals as you start to see what the “vision” is from the political and planning bureaucracy. La Casa went from a rehab of the convent to a new construction building on 18th now “slated” for 2011. We shall see. That is a constant in the development community, optimistic timeframes, unbuilt plans (ever see the proposed Pilsen Hotel by STL
Architects? that was a beauty!) and round these parts with the added “social engineering” requirements it all becomes complicated. To be fair we should say these are proposed Lower West Side projects community definitions being so fluid with a real estate developer putting “University District” on a sign and some residents immediately repeating it as fact. All those names for Uptown for example. The surprise to me was the CBRE Centro 18 marketing being updated. Monday brings some closure to the Kimball Hill Bankruptcy making this part of the “trust” assets. Will they be able to get someone to take it on even with a 20M subsidy? Who knows. I am not aware that making all of Pilsen’s commercial corridors a giant TIF to subsidize this project is publicly known. I do not believe there has been any community discussion about this TIF financing plan which makes the 21% set aside being paid for out of project proceeds a lark. So it goes, so it goes.
I don’t know Pilsen well enough to comment intelligently, but that never stopped me before.
I think the housing stock made it easier for Uptown to “gentrify”. The large number of center entrance six flats were relatively easy to convert to condo ownership. The law doesn’t currently allow aldercritters to stop such conversions or any condo conversion for that matter. Later, after virtually all the 6 flats were converted, larger courtyard type buildings were converted. The lakefront highrises were largely converted to condos decades ago.
Pilsen lacks those types of housing stock in similar percentages to Uptown. Uptown also had the advantage of gentrified or gentrifying hoods on 2 or 3 sides plus that large body of H2O to the east.
While the majority of Uptown has an alderman who could charitably be called “problematic”, the area right around Lawrence and Broadway is part of another aldercritter’s realm and she is less “problematic” regarding commercial development. The Pilsen alderman and his Starbucks loathing daughter are huge impediments to gentrification to Pilsen.
Gentrification in Uptown has largely been driven one or two buildings at a time. With the exception of the glorious Wilson Yard development there were/are no large pieces of underdeveloped land in Uptown that could foster gentrification. Pilsen has plenty of underdeveloped land and it is easier for the alderRoyalty to have a strong imput on the development or non development of such parcels.
So to put it succintly I think it was easier for gentrification to take hold in Uptown. That being said I still think the economic and social reality is that Pilsen will gentrify. The time frame is the main question.
As Joe Zekas said the area of East Pilsen, and I would add some undeveloped land east of there, is possibly the largest potential prime residential development opportunity in an urban area in America. It’s criminal, and speaking as a criminal I know, for the city not to be actively planning to develop those parcels.
The city needs the tax revenue and vitality that middle income folks provide. That means providing housing in areas close to downtown that such middle income folks want to live. I don’t care whether they are muppies, buppies, guppies,yuppies or any other silly acronym. If Chicago is to avoid the fate of Detroit or Cleveland those areas need to be developed.
If you want to get an idea of what a dying city looks like take a look at todays New York Times Magazine online about the fate of boardups in Cleveland.
IrishPirate,
Every idea I’ve seen for the riverfront corridor in East Pilsen seems designed to retard rather than promote residential development. The so-called Spice Barrel Creative Industries District (pdf file) strikes me as a perfect example of wishful-thinking elevated to an art form.
The whole concept of retaining industry in areas prime for residential or commercial development is simply wrong.
After the 2010 census “Da Mare” needs to redistrict that area into the 11th Ward. Run a strip of “ward” down Canal Street. The other potential aldercritters would be as bad as the current aldercreature. The 11th Ward guys know how to get development done. For a piece of the action of course or some campaign “contributions”.
There is plenty of industrial land available in less desirable areas of the city to redevelop. Taking areas adjacent to downtown is silly.
“Look for an El Line spur to come down the 16th Street Viaduct to connect McCormick to the train grid in the future as the “transit oriented development” of 16th Street gets fully in place with midrises lining both sides of the corridor, the modified Circle line plan which will happen even faster if the Olympics occur.”
Is there any further information about this?
Sheridan, good catch! I first came up with this idea during the public comment phase on the CTA Circle Line plan given the huge costs of connecting thru Pilsen as they had planned. Federal funds cannot be used for demolition in a federal Historic district which the area where demolition would have to be is besides the astronomical cost of building over the River to catch the Orange at Halsted. The existing rail right of way existing down 16th that could connect to McCormick was the obvious answer. My initial comment via email was not published in their notes which made me believe it to be worthy. Government being what it is. I then attended the forum in Chinatown and proposed it again to a very open CTA planner privately who admitted the Orange Line was possible because of the Rail right of way to Midway and he understood my thinking. The city then started advocating high density midrises along the 15th and 16th Street corridor in planning documents between Ashland and Canal. This corridor will be one of the highest density linear areas in the coming decades. This while the Roosevelt corridor continued to emerge as a commercial center and a homeless shelter was positioned next to Canal and 14th. Obvious transit oriented development, all of it. Rezko’s “Riverside District” fell into a political morass but then the planned Olympic Village was positioned along McCormick with venues only directly accessible via the 16th corridor, United Center, Douglas Park, and UIC. Then the rail go round was approved moving the current bottleneck out of the center along this corridor freeing up this rail for commuter traffic. Now Durbin announces 6 Million dollars in financing for the Circle Line which will connect “North Riverside Mall to the Center City.” It seems to me if you follow the rail line (Metra) from North Riverside Mall to the Center City the only way to get there is via 16th. So it is just my “speculation”.
As for your good wishes to Thalia, any comment on the baron of bankfraud that owns it? The whole neighborhood knows what he did. I am surpised you are silent on that.
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