The wisest way to develop housing is to give the people what they want, not to tell them what they want, says Pam Gecan, marketing manager for AMS Realty, the exclusive marketing agent of Westhaven Park, a massive new residential community on the city’s Near West Side. The benefit of building a development of more than 750 residences in multiple phases is that the developers can sculpt their product around the reactions of buyers in earlier phases. As Brinshore Development and Michaels Development Company roll out the second phase of Westhaven Park, they’ve introduced new products and refined existing ones to meet buyers’ needs.
“I think the developers here really have made an effort to listen and to look at their experience in phase one, and they’re introducing products that I think are appropriate and that I think the market is going to be excited about,” says Gecan. To accommodate buyers looking for more space and privacy, Brinshore and Michaels, together with Landon Bone Baker Architects, designed the Maypole Street Townhomes within Westhaven Park. The 24 three-story townhomes have two or three bedrooms, dens, attached garages, rooftop decks with wet bars and 1,500 to more than 2,500 square feet.
Phase one included condos in both three-story walk-ups and a nine-story mid-rise, and the developers found that buyers responded well to walk-ups that had, at most, eight or nine units. “What we noticed with our buyers is they like low density,” said Gecan. “They like the fact that there wasn’t a big, long hallway and, you know, 48 people that lived in the building, and so we’re going to mimic that with these walk-up buildings and condominiums [in phase two]. We’re keeping the density down and using smaller buildings.”
Condos in phase two of Westhaven Park, about 86 in all, will be in three-story walk-ups. Units have one to three bedrooms and 806 to 1,562 square feet. Some have dens, and the three-bedroom units are duplexes.
Brinshore and Michaels also have introduced 12 live-work units into phase two of the development. These three-story units have two-bedroom homes atop a first-floor work studio that includes a full kitchen and bathroom and a separate entrance. There’s also a patio and private yard off the studio, a deck off the second-floor kitchen, a balcony off the master bedroom, and a two-car garage. “You’re essentially buying two units,” Gecan said. “I think small home-based businesses are going to be interested. Also potentially artists or photographers.”
In a way, the live-work housing model encourages the kind of broad redevelopment Westhaven Park aims to trigger on the Near West Side. “In more communities, as they build and sort of revitalize, you get your rooftops first,” Gecan says. “The residential comes in and that’s followed by commercial and services. We would hope that we would mirror what happened in the South Loop.”
A wide range of buyers — from former renters in Rogers Park to suburbanites — have headed to Westhaven Park in search of lower prices and a convenient location, Gecan says. “As prices have shot up enormously in the West Loop and the South Loop and of course River North, development continues to push farther west,” she says. “If you work downtown, you are downtown literally in five minutes, and the price points are more attractive.”
Developed on the 26-acre former site of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Henry Horner Homes — bounded by Hermitage, Lake, Oakley and Washington — Westhaven Park includes both rental and CHA replacement housing alongside its market-rate stock (each representing roughly one-third). With the 173-unit first phase already delivered, the developers are in the position to see the integration in action as they work on the second phase.
“So far, it’s working,” says Gecan. “It reminds me of just a real-life neighborhood where you have people of different incomes in different housing types all living together in one community. In some ways it’s novel, but in other ways it’s just the real world. Not all neighborhoods are homogeneous, unless you’re in Glencoe or something.”
Standard finishes inside market-rate homes at Westhaven Park include hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and 42-inch cabinets, and upgrade packages are available. Architect Landon Bone Baker is taking the award-winning exterior design found in phase one a step further by applying a more contemporary aesthetic to the new townhomes and live/work spaces. “They just have a modern, contemporary, fresh look,” says Gecan.
Condos in the second phase of Westhaven Park are priced from the $220s to the $330s. Townhomes are priced at either $375,000 or $475,000, and live-work units are $595,000. Sales on the second phase of Westhaven Park are scheduled to open the third week of April. Construction is slated to begin in fall 2008, and deliveries will likely begin sometime in 2009, Gecan said. A sales center is located at 140 N Wood St.