Comments ( 17 )

• Too bad those lovely antique and collectibles stores that used to characterize this stretch of Belmont cannot strike a deal to use the new commercial spaces. The uniqueness of this “Antique Row” will probably, unfortunately, soon be destroyed in favor of yet another enclave of upscale hair salons and overpriced “premium junk food” emporia.

• My contractor and good friend owns a two-flat (lives in the top floor…renovated and duplexed-up) at Kimball an Damen just south of the Belmont Blue Line. I was just in Avondale at Small Bar with him last night. There is a good amount of hipsters in the area who like their premium beer.

  I also represented a client on a rehabbed single family home over a year ago between Belmont and Diversey. Another young couple we know bought a two flat they are renovating into a single family home… they moved from a condo in Lakeview.

  There have been some new construction homes here in the eastern part of Avondale sell at $700K plus.

  We were just commenting on how we are surprised there has not been a rash of single family home rehabs and a little more new construction in this spot. If you are within 3500 west and between Belmont and Diversey, you have great access to the Belmont or Logan Blue Line stops.

  We figure that longer time residents are simply not selling their homes at a great pace. I think there is a pretty good up-side, especially if the retail improves (Dominicks on Belmont closed).

  I’d be interested to hear others take on the area.

• Well transportation is also great there in some aspects. The Kennedy splits right through the middle of Avondale with numerous entries and exits, and there are two blue line stops. Eric, I have noticed however that most of the development that has occurred in Avondale is east of the Expressway and east of Kimball. I feel that that is the only part that is really growing. It might be due to the fact that the east side is a lot closer to LakeView, Lincoln Park, Logan Square and North Center.

• Not all of us in Avondale desire growth simply for growth’s sake or to attract people looking to speculate on property.

  A case in point being the fantastic Small Bar, which in only a few short years managed to price out many of the artistic class & old-timers that used to go there & gave it character, as most tap beers are now $5 (although the ubiquitous PBR is always an option). That’s progress to a degree, and I don’t necessarily get upset by it, I just don’t go to Small Bar that much any more (the Winds is far funkier and has live music). The art district Rey Colon has established on Milwaukee centered on Diversey & Kimball is coming along nicely, we’re just looking for balanced development.

  I’m in the west of the Kennedy zone, and it’s still (thankfully) pretty much people rehabbing their own homes, younger people coming in doing the rehabs themselves, etc. But lurking under the surface radar is a very strong and committed longtime older resident population that has no intention of being bullied out of their neighborhood after overcoming the worst of the gang-infestation years. You’ll see a political war zone if the teardown crowd tries destroying the single family and 2 flat housing stock, people are eying the Belmont development very carefully -I think if it stays on the major streets it’s generally accepted, but on the side streets, no way.

• Carter,

  You are dead on. It is a pretty interesting dynamic there. I think an interesting question is if the investment in “development” (however it’s defined) is necessary to uproot the gang issues you mention, or can that happen without a good number of rehabs and construction happening on the residntial streets.

  Honestly, one of the only reasons I would not consider a house in this area of Avondale (opting for a duplex in another neighborhood) is the real or perceived street activity that still remains.

  Although, I’m at my client’s and friends house all the time in the neighborhood, and other than some sightings of “questionable” groups of toughs, I’ve always been comfortable there as have my friends.

  My buddy said things really changed about two years ago when the 8 flat that hosted a crack house went up in smoke at about 3100 N Kimball. The building is now for sale (or just sold).

  As for beer and the crowd at Small Bar, I feel it’s only one place, among many neighborhood bars, that has good food, and a very consistent coolness vibe and killer juke box… with cheaper beers to go with the $5 dollar variety… but remember that you get 8% plus alcohol by volume with the Belgian beers. Boom goes the dynamite.

  I still think this east of the expressway spot so close to the Blue Line can be a sort of mini Old Irving for single family homes (old housing stock surrounding a Blue Line, easy to down town).

  The X-Factor when talking about single family homes is also the school preformance. Case in point, one of the buyers of a new construction single family homes we met in the neighborood is a single male… not too interested in having kids.

  Chicagoago, I think the single family home bump should happen pretty much east of Kimball.

• things changed when I showed up, baby.

  but seriously, the biggest thing working for my neck of the woods is Avondale Elementary – it keeps a constant horde of parents and safety folks walking to and from the school from the L. high schools, otoh, can be a major problem as you have kids with nothing to do between 3 and 6 just wandering the streets.

  later at night the school issue doesn’t really apply, but quite frankly, some of the “new and improved” parts of the North side are downright creepy at night they are so desolate – I’m talking about just west of Wrigley Field, I’ve had several occasions in the past month where I was walking around pretty late (Metro show, late show at Music Box) and man, I think it’s far more freaky than Avondale.

  It did crack me up that when I moved in, a guy on my block (recently passed away, a real shame) I hadn’t yet met whispered to a friend as I walked by “would you look at that – white people are moving back here!” you definitely get the feeling when you talk to the older folks that many of them feel the neighborhood turned a corner at some point, and I don’t see many of them selling – I do see some passing away of old age, so those properties are the ones I watch.

  the school thing works in my favor, people my age with kids are ones who are assuming that educating their kids isn’t going to be as simple as sending them down the street, I knew full well I’ll be looking into magnets and if necessary, private schools- there are plenty, and as a kid who went to Iganatius from the north side (there were kids going there from Indiana and Portage Park and beyond), distance isn’t necessarily a major obstacle.

• The part of Avondale west of the Kennedy to Pulaski and between Belmont and Addison strikes me as kinda nice. I’ve haven’t been there for years but it seems it missed most of the gang activity that was south and there were some small and large townhome developments there in the late 90’s.

  Close to the expressway and Blue Line. Decent shopping nearby.

  If my memory is correct most of the homes and small apartment buildings there were in good shape and brick so I wouldn’t expect many teardowns. At least yet.

  Anything happening around there off the main streets?

• they had gang problems there, but not so much as further south. and no, not a lot of homes are coming down, the housing market cooldown started after only a few homes had been torn down with new single family homes then being built, and those have sold very slowly from what I can gather.

  the problem with getting too far west is the congestion gets awful, largely due to the catastrophe that is the intersection of Belmont & Kimball.

  I’d like to talk to the genius that decided to have the west bound Belmont bus turn left to drop off/pick up people at the Blue Line terminal.

  While the bus is waiting for Belmont to clear headed east so it can enter the turnaround, it backs up Belmont headed west, often including the eastbound Belmont bus.

  Then the bus then has to enter Kimball street and immediately get into the left turn lane (clogging Kimball northbound), then make a clumsy, slow left turn on to Belmont (clogging Belmont yet again, in both directions).

  That station has only the one entrance/exit (the only subway station I’ve ever seen like that, in fact), which may be the reason the bus does that, but it’s ridiculous IMO. people can cross the street to get to the station as far as I’m concerned, a bus isn’t a door-to-door taxi service, it’s a means to move large numbers of people as efficiently as possible – that’s not efficient.

  makes me want to become a city planner so I can undo some of the damage some of these “it worked in theory” eggheads have wrought on us. needless to say, I have spent a good deal of time waiting for the Belmont bus and have had ample opportunity to be aggravated by this process.

• Just what the city needs – more soulless generic McCondos. And for only $450,000, sign me up for a no money down I/O neg am ARM!

• Carter,

  I entered and exited the Kennedy at Kimball and travelled Belmont most days for 7 years until this August. The poor planning for the bus didn’t much affect auto traffic on Belmont.

  On a separate note, I went to high school in Newark, NJ and travelled 45 minutes to an hour each way on two public buses to get there from my home in Elizabeth. Many of my classmates had a longer commute. I don’t think any of us considered it much of an issue. It was just what you did when the public schools were awful.

• What a shame, we just keep assuming that the local schools will be “awful” despite all the efforts that the administration and other interested parties have been doing for the past 10 years or so. Can a city really achieve “world-class” status if its adult population “waves the white flag” and decides that a “world class school system” will not be part of the mix?

• Local, Some of us don’t want our kids to be the test case in schools or go through the transition. I went to a high school that was good when I entered and had metal detectors the year after I graduated. My boy won’t get everything, but a good primary school he will.

  If, as a parent, I can send my kid somewhere else NOW, I will (as Carter suggests). And we hope the fact that there is competition will put pressure on the public schools. We vote with our feet and money.

  So, I don’t know what the answer is if old teachers don’t care, have little power and the punks in class are running the show.

  However, I do my best in and around the neighborhood… but I don’t know if I can move the mountain that is CPS. One of the problems is kids that go to the high schools are not from the neighborhood… and even if I understand you’re trying to give the other kids a shot, it’s hard to know who’s coming in that school… the neighborhood’s efforts can be thwarted.

  It seems parents have a better shot at the K-8 level, but I don’t see that happening in Avondale yet.

  Carter… we have to do Small Bar with my contractor friend Jon who lives on Kimball. I got first round.

• Affordable? These?

• Joe, admittedly it’s not always bad, but driving though the area doesn’t give you enough time to really observe it – standing at the corner, listening to the angry honking, watching a bus lock another bus, etc., etc. conveys a much different impression.

  Eric, shoot me an email, carterobrien@yahoo, a 2 year old and a band keep me busy, but I still get out there periodically.

• Can they please stop vomiting up the exact same f***ing building on every available lot on the North Side??

• Just stumbled on this article two months late…I’m one of those who bought a single-family home in Avondale (I’m near the river and Belmont), almost four years ago. Our family bought knowing all of the positives of the area: proximity to transit and the highway, relatively low costs of housing, quiet community. We’re a little disappointed that the retail has not kept pace with the housing boom. Those cookie-cutter condos now surround us (that mystery building is especially egregious, dwarfing the poor church next door) but there is little else in the neighborhood. We’re glad to have Kuma’s, Hot Doug’s, The Orbit Room, and the Guanajuato, but we don’t understand the failure of most of the retail in the neighborhood. A lot of the businesses in the messy intersection of Elston/California/Belmont are boarded up. Others are vacant. The ones that do exist seem to be dollar stores or mattress/car stereo/tire stores. Wish the infusion of cash into the housing stock here would trickle down into the local businesses. Our block is pretty much untouched by the housing boom; it’s mostly old-timers and Mexican families. Many of the homes are poorly maintained, which is a shame.

• Madeline,

  generally retail lags the development. Sometimes by many years. Give it time. Typically what happens is slow postive change for a number of years followed by relatively rapid changes.

  What is generally helpful is additional housing density on main streets. More people mean more money.

  Many times neighborhood “leaders” and groups oppose added density in such locations. Then they complain about the lack of retail. It may not be possible to have it both ways.

  My guess is Avondale will be a significantly better retail-wise in ten years. One thing that strikes me about Avondale overall is that it is relatively low density. Mostly SFH and smaller apartment buildings. You need more friggin people there and the good and the bad that comes with increased density.