Chicago's Lathrop mixed-income community featured in BD&C
HED is very proud to share that the story of Lathrop is being told in a new feature from Building Design & Construction magazine. Formerly New Deal era public housing, a dedicated integrated team (including HED), converted the property into an updated riverfront mixed-income community. The following contains excerpts from the piece on Building Design & Construction. You can view the article in its entirety using the link below.
"On June 16, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Congress passed legislation creating the Public Works Administration, a key component of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
The PWA’s goal was simple: to reduce unemployment—then at 25%, the highest it’s ever been—through the construction of massive public works. Out of this bold initiative would come the Grand Coulee Dam, the Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge in New York, and hundreds of courthouses, post offices, hospitals, and schools.
A less well-known piece of the PWA’s work was the construction of 52 low-rent housing projects in the U.S., the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. This was the federal government’s first direct effort at building housing, a task previously left to the states, cities, and philanthropies.
The fourth-largest of these PWA public housing communities was Lathrop Homes—29 low-rise residential structures, a power station, and an administration building nestled on 34 acres along the Chicago River, on the city’s North Side. The 925-unit community opened in 1938.
Ten years ago, after decades of neglect by the Chicago Housing Authority that left just 140 of the apartments occupied, the CHA issued an RFP to consider the future of Lathrop Homes—described as “one of the most architecturally significant surviving projects from America’s first phase of public housing.”
From this would emerge a plan to renovate and modernize 21 of the historic buildings, construct 12 new apartment buildings, preserve 17 acres of open space, create new linkages to the Chicago River, and add a robust menu of amenities. The Lathrop complex would eventually have 400 public, 232 affordable, and 494 market-rate housing units.
Phase 1A, completed two years ago at a cost of $200 million, saw the gut renovation of 16 of the historic buildings and construction of a new six-story structure, yielding a total of 414 apartments—151 public housing units, 91 at 60% AMI, 10 at 80% AMI, and 162 market-rate. Phase 1B, the $40 million renovation of two more historic buildings, is under way.
All units, whether public housing, affordable, or market-rate, are furnished with the same quartz kitchen countertops, Whirlpool stainless steel appliances, in-unit washer/dryers, Moen plumbing fixtures, and wide-plank flooring.
Amenities include a half-mile riverwalk and nature trail, a dog park, a children’s playground, bicycle storage, valet trash removal and recycling, maker spaces, 239 parking spaces, and a dock and kayak launch. There’s a woodshop collective on site. An independent Boys & Girls Club occupies private space at the edge of the property.
Eleven acres of open space, including the original two-acre Great Lawn, were carefully restored along historic guidelines by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, designers of Maggie Daley Park and The 606 trail in Chicago. MVVA added a kayak launch and circular dog park and improved connections to the Chicago River, turning what was once an eyesore into a community asset.
