"Live / work" homes for the $590s along Lake Street

Ok, we’re tired of hanging around waiting for the folks at the Westhaven Homes development to send us pictures of these “live / work spaces” that just went on sale and will be unveiled in a Chicago Tribune ad on Sunday, so we’ll tell just you what we know.
In addition to the two-bedroom townhouses available at the site, the developer is selling 12 three -story “live / work spaces.” What’s the difference between them and the townhouses? We’re not really sure until we see the floor plans, but we’re told that the live / work units, at 2,700 square feet, will be bigger than the townhouses, and the first floor of these live / work units will include a “truncated” kitchen and a more open floor plan which buyers can convert into a studio or home office by adding half walls or whatever. The top two floors will contain conventional living areas, such as bedrooms and bathrooms.

Why market them as “live / work spaces” and not just roomier townhouses? Is it because more Americans are working from home these days, or something? A spokesperson for AMS Realty, which is marketing the new-construction development, said it was because these units were “really really kind of fun. It just seemed it was like a niche in the market. We didn’t see anything out there.”

True, there aren’t too many lofts – the original live / work space – west of Damen Avenue or even Ashland Avenue, and those that are, are more gritty, industrial-artsy kinds of spaces.

You’d need to be churning out masterpieces to make the monthly mortgage payment on a $595,000 live / work space at Westhaven Park, so clearly these units are designed with a different kind of urban professional in mind. The units will front Lake Street, adding to the growing number of businesses along that street, we’re told.

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