A few years ago, a couple real estate agents in an office where I worked suggested I take a look at East Garfield Park. This was going to be a hot neighborhood, they said. Development and gentrification were pushing in that direction and the implication was that anyone who bought then would see strong appreciation and an improving neighborhood.
I couldn’t tell you what’s on every corner in East Garfield Park, but I had been through the area enough to have some familiarity with it. I knew of the Graystones and stately manses that dotted the streets, buildings constructed at a time when homes were built right. And I also knew of the area from my parents, who in another era had a relative or two they used to visit on the “West Side.” Back then, people from the area were thought affluent and, as I’m told, they looked down upon people of my ilk from places like, say, the South Side.
We all know what happened in the 1960s and beyond as poverty and its ripple effects wreaked havoc on Garfield Park. But a couple of decades later, neighborhoods to the east began to improve. The United Center and the ’96 Democratic National Convention and the invention of a new neighborhood known as the “West Loop” sent new building and new businesses creeping west.
It’s only natural to believe that as development stretches its way toward California Avenue and into East Garfield Park proper, things will improve. The park and conservatory are excellent attractions and their revitalization can anchor a re-birth of the area. The proximity to public transportation, particularly the Green Line – bodes well for the neighborhood.
But in the end, for me, the questions became where and when. As in “where do I want to be now?” and “when will I be able to walk to the things I want to do at night?” Everything is subject to the hands of time, but how long will it be before East Garfield Park, apart from scattered pockets of new construction, is rehabbed into another version of the Wicker Park of early ’90s lore? According to the aforementioned agents, it’s already happening. What do you think? Click on “Comments” below.
I can tell you what’s on all too many corners in East Garfield Park – nothing. Nothing is the result of the corners marking the boundaries between the turf of competing gangs and being burned out as a result.
I’d say you’d need to be looking at a very long time horizon – say 20 years or more – before you’ll see any significant change in East Garfield Park.
Your experience with real estate agents touting the area mirrors mine from over 20 years ago. Back then they were peddling 2- and 3-flats along West Madison Street in the $1,500 range. Yup, $1,500 plus back taxes.
I’d say an awful lot more infill has to take place to the east before there’s any hope of much happening in the area. It’s flat on its back, and barely twitching.
Joe,
Even though there seems to be a decent amount of condo developments going on in the neighborhood, as well as a large effort to revitalize retail all along Madison Street, you don’t think East Garfield has any momentum whatsoever? I’m not saying that it will be the next Wicker Park or anything, in a few years from now, but the neighbhorhood does seem to be moving in the right direction…
Keith,
I’m speculating that the pace of change in East Garfield Park will be glacial, at best.
The area’s advantages are the park, public transit and the quality of the original housing stock. Think Uptown, which has the same advantages and recall how long it’s taken Uptown to advance to its current semi-sorry state..
The disadvantages are the greater viability and price-competitiveness of closer-in neighborhoods, but mostly the state that EGP is currently in.
There is a trickle of new construction and renovation, but just a trickle and not enough of a resale history to get a solid fix on how viable even that is. There are few, if any, viable institutions that have a stake in revitalizing the area. There’s little or nothing in the way of employment in the community. The city doesn’t seem to have prioritized development here. This list of don’t-haves could go on and on.
Retail is going to take a very long time to develop, if it ever does. It’s slow to happen even in extremely strong neighborhoods (think Belmont Ave west to the river and even Lincoln / Belmont / Ashland).
I think that “neighborhood” retail is gone forever, and never coming back the way that the Madison Street plan envisions it.
For starters, I can’t make any sense out of one of the fundamental concepts behind this sort of plan, the notion of “leakage,” the idea that dollars are being spent outside of the community that would magically be spent within the community if retail somehow were there. It strikes me as more romantic than realistic. In any event, there are too many depressed communities chasing the same vision in Chicago, and leakage is inevitable. The vast changes in retailing in the last 20 years can’t be wished away.
It takes either an enormous amount of city investment or an enormous push by market forces to move an area like EGP very far from its inertial center. I don’t see either happening soon.
Joe,
You make a lot of strong points, and you may be correct about East Garfield improving at a very slow pace. However, I think your one point you make about “leakage” being a romantic and not a realistic concept is way off. If a neighborhood doesn’t have a hardware store, then obviously 100% of the residents money that is spent on hardware will go to businesses outside of the neighborhood. If a hardward store then opens up in the middle of the neighborhood, I think it’s safe to say that some of the neighborhood’s residents will now spend their money at the hardware store in the neighborhood, as opposed to driving a few miles away to the neighborhood that used to have the closest hardware store. Even if only 1% of the residents money on hardware is going to the hardware store in the neighborhood while the other 99% of this money is going to hardware stores outside the neighborhood, leakage is still being reduced. This number will not be 1%, though; it will more realistically be 50% or more, as I’m sure the neighborhood hardware store will be far more convenient than any other hardware store, given it’s proximity. Thus, leakage will not only be reduced, but it will be reduced substantially.
Keith,
A hardware store was specifically mentioned in the Madison Street plan.
The UIC research showed $2 million in leakage for hardware, suggesting that the neighborhood could support a hardware store. This was based on a purported trading area of a 1-mile radius from the Madison Street corridor, from Damen west to Central Park Ave.
It’s obvious that any new neighborhood hardware store is not going to capture 100% of that $2 million. What percentage it needs to capture is best known to hardware store operators, who have not been flocking to the area to date.
Between 1992 and 2002 the number of hardware stores in the US declined by 7.3% nationally, largely as a result of the giant home improvement centers such as Home Depot. There’s little reason to believe that trend is going to reverse. In 2002, the average hardware store had sales of $3.6 million – nearly double the so-called leakage from East Garfield Park, and far above the 50% retention you suggest. More info on this subject at Answers.com.
Chicago has been underserved by the Targets, Wal-Marts, etc. If they expand in the city, as is likely, they’re also likely to capture some of the dollars available to support a neighborhood hardware store. A Walgreens or a CVS would also likely capture some of those dollars, and so on.
I think I could go on in this vein, but my point remains: there are romantic rather than realistic plans being made. They don’t seem to account in any way for the dynamism of retailing and the changing buying habits of consumers.
The plans aren’t so romantic if the people support the stores. But the genie’s out of the bottle with every kind of box store you can imagine. You also have to ask yourself, what small businesses would want to be the first on the block, in an area so riddled with crime? The crime is one thing, but the strong-armed robberies that accompany newer, smaller cash businesses isn’t worth it.
There’s a little hardware store I read about on 18th Street in Pilsen. Developers wanted the land and he said no. He’s still got the store and I sometimes drive down from the Village just to get things because it beats going to Home Depot when you need a sinker or something. Anyway, the guy has everything in back and he serves you. He goes and gets it. But you know what? There is no way in hell he is plugging a $2 million leak. With all the building going on, he should be. But let’s be realistic: the people in that neighborhood who are building things – and it does not matter what color, because they’re just trying to make a buck – they’re all going to the new Home Depot that just opened. Whatever revenue this guy has is going to shrink even further.
There are two extreme view regarding
East Garfield, one is that it will be the next Wicker Park in 2 years and the other is that it is moving at a snails pace. The reality lies somewhere in between. The changes in Garfield Park are evident. I frequent the area on a regular basis. Construction and rehabbing are happening on almost every block. Crime, believe it or not, is going down. The city is shutting down open air drug markets. Revitalization/Gentrification is not a static process. Changes are often slow at first, than the rate increases as the neighborhood changes, resembling a snowball effect. I’m actually suprised the area hasn’t changed already. Remember people would say the same thing about Halsted and Roosevelt 10 years ago. Look at the area now.
I have mixed feelings with some of the opinions stated above. I am providing my opinion as resident of the East Garfield. Two years ago, I purchased a gut rehab two flat. I took my realtor’s advice, and later I realized it was the best purchase I have ever made in my life [at 23yrs old]. I recently refinanced my home and was astonished that the house had appreciated 36% over two years. I will not lie. When I first moved into the neighborhood, it was no shock that I stood out like a sore thumb. But, I can’t help that I’m 10 minutes from many of the popular neighborhoods, four train stops away from my office in downtown, sanwiched between green and blue lines, and actually have parking [yes, a garage]. So, your question Mr. Mark Dalton, I believe East Garfield Park is ripe for revilatization. It will NOT take 20 years for it START happening. In fact, it is happening before our eyes. Some just wish to keep their eyes shut or maybe they just don’t know.
And you ask, what about the businesses? Attached is a recent business plan for the rebirth and the revitalization of the Madison Street business district. [See Page 36-41] Explains it. UIC’s helping with this project and only God knows what these kids will do 😉 Look what they did to Maxwell Street and Pilsen.
http://www.newcommunities.org/cmadocs/MadisonStPlan-small.pdf
This article may be so old that no one will see this comment, but if you do, please consider joining a new Yahoo group I have created for East Garfield Park at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eastgarfield/. I am sick of crime and want to work together as a community to see what we can do.