The Davis Group, headed by veteran developer and investor Allison Davis, will take on the second phase of Lake Park Crescent, a mixed-income development that will ultimately include 490 units of new housing in North Kenwood / Oakland. First-phase developer Draper and Kramer is being replaced because it progressed too slowly on the project, said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), when Yo caught up with her Saturday at a community meeting at Donaghue School.
Lake Park Crescent is one of the developments replacing the former CHA Lakefront Homes. CHA replacement housing generally has about a third of its units devoted public housing, a third market-rate and a third affordable. The first phase of Lake Park Crescent includes 148 apartments, which have been occupied for several years, and 68 units of new for-sale housing shortly to break ground, Kim Dooley, marketing director at Draper and Kramer told Yo.
A story that appeared in the May / June 2006 edition of the Chicago Reporter noted that Draper and Kramer initially marketed the apartments only to former Lakefront Homes residents. After struggling to fill them, Draper and Kramer got permission from a U.S. District Court judge to market to tenants who were living in other CHA projects or who had never been in public housing at all.
The for-sale units are 50 percent sold, Dooley said.