Archinect - News

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot selects affordable housing design for city's West Side

2023-04-06T09:00:00-04:00

A $47.2 million apartment building with 100% affordable units will be built next to a Green Line stop in East Garfield Park, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday. Her administration selected the winner from three development proposals submitted for the site at 132 N. Kedzie Ave. The nearly half-acre property at the southwest corner of Kedzie and Lake street has been city-owned since the 1990s.

The development, called Hub 32, will span 78,000 square feet, stand seven stories tall, and include 63 units. It will offer apartments with rents affordable to those earning up to 60% of the area’s median income. The winning proposal was designed by Brooks + Scarpa and Studio Dwell. The site will also include ground-floor retail space, 16 exterior parking spots, and a public plaza for outdoor dining and gathering. The investors of the project include the Michaels Organization, KMW Communities, and TruDelta Real Estate. The group will be eligible for assistance from the city, including subsidies.

In 2022, the city’s planning department invited proposals for the site and received more than 30 responses. These were narrowed down to three. Outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot celebrated the proposal’s inclusion of design features and amenities that reflect the desires of the community. She’s confident it will work to revitalize the surrounding area as an affordable, transit-oriented s...

SOM unveils design for first tower at Atlanta's Centennial Yards development

2022-03-04T11:52:00-05:00

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has unveiled the design for One Centennial Yards, the first ground-up tower at the Foster + Partners and Perkins&Will-designed Centennial Yards master plan in Downtown Atlanta.

Envisioned in partnership with Atlanta’s Goode Van Slyke Architecture (GVSA), One Centennial Yards will provide 28 stories and over 500,000 square feet of office space. The tower comprises three slender towers. Its façade is inspired by the industrial and railroad heritage of Downtown Atlanta. It features 19,000 square feet of amenities and 21,980 square feet of outdoor spaces. One Centennial Yards is designed to provide open-air environments on every floor, with terraces on every level, large retractable doors on the building’s amenity floor, and landscaped rooftops. The building was designed with the post-pandemic workspace in mind, providing tenants with opportunities to gather and connect outdoors.

“We are thrilled to be the architect for One Centennial Yards, the flagsh...

Chicago announces largest investment in affordable housing in city's history

2021-12-09T14:21:00-05:00

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Housing (DOH) Commissioner Marisa Novara announced on December 6th more than $1 billion in affordable housing through the Chicago Recovery Plan, as part of Lightfoot’s 2022 budget. This is the largest investment in affordable housing in Chicago’s history.

Aiming to create and preserve 2,428 affordable housing units spread across 24 developments, the DOH is more than doubling the 11 developments awarded and 1,083 units built over the $398 million granted over the 2019 Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) round.

The 24 LIHTC developments were selected through a racial equity lens. As detailed in the City of Chicago’s press release, the DOH conducted the country’s first Racial Equity Impact Assessment of the LIHTC program through a process that examines data by race, centering on the experiences of impacted populations. As a result, the city has ensured that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) developers will benefit ...

Will coronavirus make transit-oriented development a thing of the past?

2020-05-08T12:32:00-04:00

“This is an opportunity to think in new ways, but people will still want to live close to transit,” [Dr. Richard J. Jackson] said. The challenge for developers will be marrying density with safety, which will now require an interdisciplinary approach [...]

The New York Times takes a look at the potential impact the coronavirus pandemic could have on the future of transit-oriented development in the United States. Transit use has fallen drastically during the lockdown period, while many high-profile figures, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, have spoken out against urban density in response to the pandemic.These trends are converging to potentially make TOD projects less desirable in the future.

Dr. Jackson tells The New York Times, "The era of a single architect designing buildings is over, he said, and transit-oriented development will need to bring in the best minds from design, health and transit to come up with living spaces that are conducive to community but also the well-being of residents."

Transit-oriented development thrives ahead of light rail debut in Seattle

2019-10-06T12:00:00-04:00

The Roosevelt neighborhood has the makings of a huge transit-oriented development success story. A building boom is underway, protected bike lanes have recently gone in, and the station site will be home to an affordable housing complex right around the time trains begin operating. Northgate Link, along with an underground station in Roosevelt, will open in 2021, and the neighborhood–like others along the line–are already transforming

The Urbanist takes a look at three neighborhoods in Seattle that have seen a rush in transit-oriented development as a new light rail line heads toward its 2021 completion.

Nonprofit group seeks to gut L.A.'s most successful affordable housing reforms

2019-09-04T13:15:00-04:00

The city’s [Transit-Oriented Communities] program has been touted as one of City Hall’s most successful initiatives for producing affordable housing. Since it was launched in late 2017, developers have proposed nearly 20,000 new homes, nearly 3,900 of which would be kept affordable for lower-income households, according to the latest data from the planning department.

The notorious Los Angeles NIMBY group Fix The City has filed a lawsuit targeting the city's Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program, arguing that the program, widely approved by a 2016 voter referendum, violates city and state laws and was not properly vetted by the public.

Alex Comisar, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's office, speaking with The Los Angeles Times, called the "lawful and essential" program "an incredible weapon" for bringing housing affordability to the city, adding, "The mayor believes this program is a critical tool for getting new affordable housing units built across the city."