Joe Zekas R.I.P.

 Joe Zekas ran the real estate news website YoChicago. If you have been following that site and their social media channels i.e. YouTube or X/Twitter you might find that he hadn't updated since June 2023 which was the month that he was said to have passed away unexpectedly.

Zekas in the early days would link to us frequently and you might find a few comments here from him in the past. And he caught my eye thanks to his coverage of some of the south side neighborhoods such as Pill Hill, Pullman, Englewood, Chatham, West Chesterfield, etc.

Even did a video I featured here called "treating your skin disease" he railed against the bias toward buying and living in "certain" communities based upon the predominate ethnicities in those communities. For example I do believe he was speaking of Chatham he might say why isn't Chatham a destination for everyone to consider buying and living there? [VIDEO]

As of late I see YoChicago appears to be a one man shop with Zekas running everything. He's the only one listed on staff there. He's had people like Joe Askins, Eric Stonikas, Whet Moser, and others work with him over the years. In addition some of the people who worked with him at YoChicago had also joined Curbed Chicago back when the Curbed publication had more local editions. So I'm sure there's quite a learning tree out there for people who want to follow what's going on in Chicago real estate.

My condolences to Zekas' family.

As we head into 2024, I couldn't allow this to go unnoticed on this blog! 

Chicago Reader: A theft hidden in plain sight for decades

Question to ask as you read this how does land sale contracts lead to land theft?

The greater Englewood area has been subject to land theft for over 80 years. It’s apparent when you see boarded-up windows and overgrown weeds that cover the community. Empty houses abound, a legacy of the impact that racism has had on the area for years, vacant lots indicating opportunities withheld from aspiring Black homeowners. It’s a crime that Chicago’s Tonika Lewis Johnson, activist, artist, and the National Public Housing Museum’s 2021 resident Artist-as-Instigator, seeks to expose with her project Inequity for Sale.

“In my lifetime, I witnessed disparity get worse and worse in Englewood,” Johnson told me. “I wanted to visualize that by putting land markers in front of homes impacted by land sale contracts . . . over 200 houses sold under land sale contracts are now abandoned or just empty lots.”

Inequity for Sale aims to highlight the negative impact that land sale contracts have had on the greater Englewood area. After learning about the contracts at a community meeting hosted by the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE), a community-driven activist organization, Johnson became interested in the idea of visualizing the impact that land sale contracts had on the area through a public art project.

“The actual idea for Inequity for Sale was inspired by a 2019 Duke University report [The Plunder of Black Wealth in Chicago: New Findings on the Lasting Toll of Predatory Housing Contracts] that people forwarded to me,” says Johnson. “I linked up with Amber Hendley, one of the researchers on that report, and she gave our community members a map of all the homes sold in Englewood through land sale contracts, which prompted the idea.”

Sun-Times: The city could still make a play to keep the Bears

Former South Works site

Did someone read my thoughts on the Bears' stadium issue? The one where I propose the Bears come down to the former U.S. Steel South Works site that is waiting for further development? Well I'm not naieve enough to think that I'm the first to come up with, however, I didn't even see this being discussed.

Anyway from a recent Sun-Times editorial:

We could imagine, for instance, a Bears stadium on land owned by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority at 35th Street and Shields Avenue, just north of the White Sox’s ballpark. Part of that deal could include the proper redevelopment of the 70 acres of surface parking — also owned by the ISFA — that surround the ballpark.

Or, if the Bears would prefer another lakefront stadium, the city could offer a piece of the 500-acre former U.S. Steel South Works site. To do that, City Hall would have to bring the land’s owner, U.S. Steel, to the table. But the steelmaker might be wise to listen, given that two decades of redevelopment plans for the land have fluttered and died like Jack Concannon’s forward passes.

At the U.S. Steel site, the Bears would enjoy a nearly blank slate to build on and the result, if done right, could greatly benefit the working-class South Chicago neighborhood.

“So I just ask you, with all the priorities you have of lifting up communities, which is where the priority has to be, let’s not give up on trying to find a place to keep these guys in Chicago,” [Ward 48 Ald. Harry] Osterman said to Cox.

The planning department did not respond to Osterman’s suggestions, other than reissuing a statement from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office. “The mayor,” the statement said, “has said numerous times, our door in City Hall remains open to engage the Bears.”

Ald. Osterman wasn't suggesting any sites for the Bears to consider within the city, but he does want the city to work further on keeping the Bears from going to Arlington Heights, Illinois. I'm glad to see that someone at the Sun-Times sees the former South Works site as a potentially viable option for whatever the Bears want to do around a new NFL stadium.

Time will tell as far as whether or not the Bears will pull a trigger on moving from Soldier Field. Who knows what effort the Mayor of Chicago would make or even if she would be successful in keeping one of the historic NFL franchises from leaving Chicago. 

BTW, I hardly pay attention to the NFL anymore but I wish I had seen their routing of the Las Vegas Raiders.

A dream future home of the Chicago Bears in South Shore/South Chicago?

 

ChicagoBears.com

Allow me to wade into the discussion over a potential new stadium for the Chicago Bears.

To be honest, I was rather hoping that Arlington Int'l Race Course would continue to be a venue for horse racing. I also recognize that perhaps that's not the future as the economics of horse racing has changed to the point where there is a question as far as whether or not they can compete with casinos in Illinois.

That said we knew for a while there was a possibility that Arlington will close in the future and perhaps one day demolished. One day the Bears might consider going up there to build a brand new football field. It would be very unreal since I've only known them to play at Soldier Field, they also formerly played at this baseball stadium up north that's named for a brand of chewing gum.

Either way in the off chance that someone with the Bears or anyone at the City of Chicago reads this (don't matter if they work for an alderman or the mayor) I would like to propose the old South Works on 87th and Lakefront. Its land waiting for a use with many proposals over the years to be developed.

Chatham Theaters reopens

 

[VIDEO] I'm sorry to have shared this with you all much later as this is old news. How many of you are glad that our local movie house on 87th is back open. That facility has gone from being ICE Theaters, Chatham 14 Theaters, Studio Movie Grill and now Cinema Chatham powered by Emagine. It has gone through many ownership changes since 2012.

It re-opened this past weekend as Cinema Chatham and this story by Jim Williams shows their first day back in action having been closed over the past year due to the pandemic. We learned this past spring that Studio Movie Grill who owned this venue since 2014 will not be returning to this location.

With the excitement of the Chatham Theaters reopening, it's in the news that they're also looking to bring a restaurant to the theater in the future. This is according to Wendell Hutson at Chicago Business Journal which unfortunately is behind a paywall.

Also they're hiring up there if anyone is looking. There are about 70 employees there and they are looking hire people aged 16 & up.

Also shoutout to Harlan Falcon Bryan who we see is the General Manager for the Cinema Chatham.

Crain's: Dorms in the future for community college students

State Rep Nick Smith

I wonder if this legislation affects the City Colleges of Chicago. Closer to the south side imagine dorms at Olive-Harvey, Kennedy-King, or even Daley Colleges. This is an initiative of 34th District State Representative Nicholas Smith who has a history with two-year colleges.

Now that he’s a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Nick Smith isn’t embarrassed to say he struggled early in college. As he bounced back and forth between classes and his job, he spent little time on campus.

It wasn’t until Smith got a work-study job at Olive-Harvey College, a Far South Side community college, that things changed. “I started to feel immersed in the academic setting. I started to feel focused,” he recalls. After completing the two-year program, Smith went on to get a bachelor’s degree from nearby Chicago State University, and since 2019 he has represented the 34th District in the State Assembly.

With his personal experience in mind, Smith introduced legislation in Springfield this year that allows community colleges to add student housing for the first time. Signed into law July 9 by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the measure allows for residential projects to begin on or near campuses throughout the state starting in January.

The law is an empty vessel at the moment, expressing the ambition to do something new to address housing insecurity for people aiming to lift themselves out of poverty via a community college education. Nontrivial matters—most crucially, how the idea will be paid for—aren’t addressed in a piece of legislation that is only a few paragraphs long.

Here are some things specific to the city colleges:

At City Colleges, a network of seven campuses in Chicago, more than half of all students said they lacked stable housing in the last 12 months, according to a survey conducted in 2018 by the Hope Center for College, Community & Justice at Temple University. About 15 percent of students said they experienced homelessness in the same period. Black students, students identifying as LGBTQ and those who were independent of their parents or guardians in financial aid packages were more likely to experience needs insecurity, the report found. “Housing insecurity and homelessness have a particularly strong, statistically significant relationship with college completion rates, persistence, and credit attainment,” the report said.

City Colleges Chancellor Juan Salgado issued a statement to Crain’s saying the schools are committed to addressing students’ “comprehensive needs,” including housing and food insecurity, so attendees can focus on their schoolwork. The network looks forward to “exploring partnerships that would create affordable housing for our students, in particular the many City Colleges students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity,” the statement said.

For students who are homeless and not connected to their parents, there’s a specific way their academic program is harmed, said Niya Kelly, director of state legislation at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Because of “the presumption in this country that your parents help you until you’re 23 or 25 years old,” Kelly said, colleges generally require a parent’s Social Security and other tax information.

Students who don’t have that “get dinged and have to go through an appeal process,” Kelly said, which results in “getting their packets later, which means registering for classes after other people and dealing with that uncertainty of not knowing whether they’re going to get to go back to school or not.”

Removing any of these obstacles, Smith said, “is adding to our students’ chances of succeeding” and using that college degree to improve their circumstances.

You know how could this affect the surrounding area. With Olive-Harvey and Kennedy-King for example could this be a good thing for the surrounding neighborhoods? 

Main Seaway branch of Self-Help FCU has reopened

 Have been knowing for a while that the original main branch of Seaway Nat'l Bank has re-opened as of May 17th. Another longtime Seaway branch just off the expressway at 87th/Dan Ryan or 8652 South Lafayette Avenue will soon be merged with the main branch and is expected to close down by May 31, 2021 (according to the credit union locations page).

Also check out this blog post by Self-Help published on May 13th about the main branch eventual reopening.

To see some of the work Self-Help FCU has done to the branch they did that building justice check out this tweet posted from one of Self-Help's twitter pages.

After a year of construction our Chatham branch in Chicago is open! Our staff is excited to return and welcome back all of our members. The branch is located at 645 E. 87th St., Chicago. You can find branch hours and more information on our website: https://t.co/4oWQcmIFMl pic.twitter.com/Rbj7tw0IOG

— Self-Help Federal CU (@SelfHelpFedCU) May 18, 2021

Generosity of a stranger keeps mother and child from living in her car

 

[VIDEO] I hate to see stories like this, however, its an interesting twist. You own the property you rent it to someone else, however, that party refuses to move out. Eviction proceedings are useless because due to this pandemic the state has issued a moratorium because well if you're not working and unable to make an income how can you reasonably pay rent.

I'm glad to see that for now, thanks to someone's genorosity that someone helped this mother out and allowed her to stay in an apartment rent free. At least until that moratorium runs out and whenever that tenant is forced to move. In the meanwhile this still isn't an ideal situation.

WGN: Police partners with the Neighbors app to help solve burglaries

 

[VIDEO] I remember a few years ago when neighborhood security cameras usually on housing in West Chesterfield helped to solve the murder and robbery of a Cook County Judge. For those of you interested in some new technologies to help secure your home you have Neighbors app by Ring. Basically there is a doorbell you purchase which also has a camera.

Usually with this camera you can see - using an app you can probably check your mobile device such as a phone or tablet - who's at the door. As far as being able to help police you can send your information anonymously.

There is a heavy focus on Ward 19 or Beverly/Morgan Park. In a previous story from WGN shared on this blog recently there was some recording of the gun shots. Of course that camera was likely a good distance away from the shooting at a pancake house on Western Avenue perhaps that was something provided by a user of the neighbors app.

Just something to share with you all, something to utilize to help secure your home and certainly to be able to see who visits your home while you're at work. Even if you just want to know post office came by to drop off your mail.

Tribune: ‘I’ve never had to think about my own safety in this way before’: Shaken by summer looting in affluent neighborhoods, some Chicagoans are moving away.

I'm sharing this wondering how many of you are looking into leaving the city with what's been going on crime-wise in this city?

They understand why protesters and rioters have poured onto the streets of downtown, and some acknowledge that crime is worse in other parts of Chicago. Some also agree with protesters that something systemic needs to be changed.

But they don’t want to wait it out here in the city, fearful of stepping outside at night and hoping for things to maybe get better.

They want out.

“Not to make it all about us; the whole world is suffering,” said Amber, a 30-year-old nurse who lives in River North. “This is a minute factor in all of that, and we totally realize that. We are very lucky to have what we do have.

“But I do think that I’ve never had to think about my own safety in this way before.”

Incidents of widespread looting and soaring homicide figures in Chicago have made national news during an already tumultuous year. As a result, some say residents in affluent neighborhoods downtown, and on the North Side, no longer feel safe in the city’s epicenter and are looking to move away. Aldermen say they see their constituents leaving the city, and it’s a concern echoed by some real estate agents and the head of a sizable property management firm.

2020 has definitely became quite a year with the coronavirus pandemic and issues with crime and then then riots and looting. Very tumultuous, but I do wonder how many people who are able to move are moving?

NBC News on modern day redlining

I saw this linked on NextDoor last month and decided to share it here. It's amazing that we're still talking about redlining in America and other aspects of inequality in America. One of those issues we should just as easily discussing as far as revitalizing Black neighborhoods.

7627-43 S. State Street for sale

If you remember a few years ago there was a proposal for a hotel on this site. It was noted in this recent post from Concerned Citizens of Chatham. It was owned by the late Herbert Hedgeman. Here's hoping there some decent proposal to develop this property depending on who makes the purchase.

Benajmin E. Mays Elementary School building now an Englewood community center

Benjamin E. Mays Elementary School (838 W. Marquette Road) had been among those 50 schools on the south and west sides (or in "minority" communities) which had been closed by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel's school board back in 2013. It's unfortunate that the school named for the illustrious former President of Morehouse College is now closed. However, it's great that the building that housed the school will now have a new use as community center operated by Shepherd's Hope.

Read more about it at Block Club Chi.

Sun-Times: Why tearing down Englewood to save it hasn’t worked

Sun-Times:

From 2008 through 2018, 861 buildings were razed in Englewood. In West Englewood — Racine Avenue is the dividing line for the two neighborhoods that together make up what’s known in the area as Greater Englewood — the number was 829.

Those are the second- and third-most demolitions of any community area in Chicago. About 74% of the structures that came down were owned by the city.

The only area with more demolitions in that period was West Town, with 933.

But West Town also saw 1,400 new-construction permits issued over the past decade — far more than in Englewood and West Englewood, which together had just 140. The number of permits in greater Englewood accounted for less than 1% of all that were issued citywide.

There's a video to this also [VIDEO]

Karl Mables, 30, who has lived in the 6400 block of South Honore Street for most of his life, discusses the number of vacant lots in his neighborhood, Englewood, on the South Side, Wednesday, July 3, 2019. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Tribune: Blue Cross to bring 550 jobs to South Side, with opening of new center in former Target location

It's great to see one of the two Target stores that closed earlier this year will soon find a new use:

Blue Cross has leased a nearly 130,000-square-foot space that formerly housed a Target at 119th Street and Marshfield Avenue in Morgan Park, the health insurance company announced Monday.

Part of the facility will be offices for Blue Cross workers, and part of it will be used to help people in the community — and not just those with Blue Cross health insurance — such as by offering free yoga or nutrition classes.

The new center is expected to open in the first half of next year.

“It makes us more accessible to our employees who live across Chicagoland and Cook County,” said Jill Wolowitz, vice president of government relations and community affairs at the health insurer. “It makes us more visible and accessible to our members who live throughout Chicago, and we’re looking forward to providing some economic stimulus in a significant South Side neighborhood.”

Most of the 550 jobs will be new ones, but the company is still working out what type of jobs will be included, Wolowitz said.

The company plans to recruit for many of those new jobs from the surrounding communities, through job fairs and other local opportunities, she said.

Al Capone's former house on Prairie Ave has been sold!

We've occasionally followed the stories revolving around this home which was once where infamous Prohibition-era mobster Al Capone once resided. When it had been in the news often it was for sale and now during this past week it had found a buyer.

According to the Tribune

The red brick two-flat in the South Side Park Manor neighborhood that legendary mobster Al Capone once lived in sold April 5 for $226,000.

The 2,820-square-foot two-flat, at 7244 S. Prairie Avenue, sold for more than double its $109,900 asking price.

“We had like 80 offers on it,” listing agent Ryan Smith of Re/Max Properties told Elite Street. “We had a lot of press on it, so I think that helped it out.”

Capone moved into the two-flat with his mother and sister in 1923 after moving to Chicago from New York. Although Capone's name was never actually on the purchase deed, his mother's and wife’s names were on it, and the family owned the two-flat until the 1950s, when his mother died. After Capone got out of prison in 1939, he lived in Florida until his death in 1947.

Built about 1909, the two-flat, which sits on an extra-wide lot, has had several owners since the Capones, and in 1989, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council both rejected bids to make the house an official landmark.

Also Curbed Chicago picked up on the sale of Capone's old hime.

Just last night I looked for any YouTube video regarding this house. Some tourists came to Park Manor to check this home out and shot some video outside. It was uploaded to YouTube in June 2018 [VIDEO]

Proposed entertainment complex coming to South Shore

This isn't the first time we've heard about a new theater coming to 71st/Jeffrey. I first got wind of it in 2016 and the plan was the preserve the former HQ of ShoreBank and the former Jeffrey Theater. Then later it was reported that those buildings would have to be demolished to build the new theater.

Now this new Cinegrill being developed by ICE Theaters owner Alisa Starks expects to open in June 2020. This is according to the Chicago Citizen:

Located inside the former Urban Partnership Bank Building, 7054 S. Jeffrey Blvd., will be Cinegrill, a 50,000-square foot development that will house a seven-screen theatre with chef-designed cuisine, a bar, reclining seats, and seating capacity between 38 and 75; Odessa’s

Kitchen, a Creole-inspired restaurant seating up to 105 people; AJ’s, a four-lane bowling alley, equipped with multiple big screen TVs, a lounge that serves alcohol and appetizers, and offers table games like checkers, chess and backgammon. The last component for the development will be Penthouse 71, an events venue that can accommodate up to 225 people, and will include an outdoor patio for up to 85 people. A parking lot for the multi-entertainment center will be built at the corner of 71st Street and Bennett Avenue.

Construction is expected to begin later this year with a goal of opening June 2020, according to Starks.

“ICE is launching a new development, blending a variety of entertainment and dining targeted to sophisticated, urbane adults and leveraging a fast, growing trend of successful ‘eatertainment’ brands from Dave & Busters to Punch Bowl Social,” explained Starks.

We'll see if Starks will make good on the open date for next year. The new cineplex was proposed to have opened last year as well. 

Ethnic/racial shift in Englewood

Shared this Sun-Times article over the weekend. Englewood is changing one sign of that is not only Kennedy-King College that has been located at 63rd & Halsted since 2007, also the Whole Foods Market store that opened at 63rd & Halsted in September 2016.

Another sign of Englewood changing:

Now, there’s a new demographic shift in her neighborhood. African-Americans are leaving for better opportunities as a small-but-growing number of Hispanics move into Englewood and West Englewood, a community residents commonly call Greater Englewood.

Greater Englewood’s total population dropped from 71,740 in 2010 to an estimated 55,004 in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. During that time, the African-American population fell from 69,776 to 51,015 — a loss of nearly 19,000 residents. African-Americans still make up more than 90 percent of the population, but as some leave, the Hispanic population has tripled in size, from 845 people in 2010 to about 2,700 people by 2017.

What’s driving the influx? Cheap property, Williams said.
...
Overall, the bureau estimates Chicago’s African-American population dropped nearly 10 percent between 2010 and 2017, to 820,000. In that time, the Hispanic population grew nearly 5 percent, to 790,000.
...
Aysha Butler, president of Residents Association of Greater Englewood, said there has been little coalition-building between the two groups.

“It’s really hard to have the conversation when people are feeling that their Hispanic neighbors aren’t very neighborly,” Butler said. “I know a lot of my West Englewood members are very uneasy about this and I just hope eventually that we reach a common ground because unfortunately we’ve been taught to be divided and if we were working more closely together we probably would have a little more power.”

The history is interesting as noted in the above article Englewood in the 1960s & 1970s went from white to Black and now possibly Hispanic. And then couple this with the trend that Blacks are leaving Chicago.

Crain's: Al Capone's two-flat, a recent foreclosure, for sale #6WardChicago

Pic via Chicago Historical Society

Al Capone - an infamous 1920s prohibition-era gangster - formerly had his home in the Park Manor area at 7244 S. Prairie Ave. is on sale again. We've seen this property on this blog before over the years. And Dennis Rodkin of Crain's writes:

Status - 79th/State #6WardChicago

Photo taken in October 2009 - 79th/State

You know perhaps I should dust this post off, the vacant lot on the southeast corner of 79th & State Streets has been mentioned by Worlee Glover on Nextdoor. Allow me to share that post with you and then link to a post which was one of the first times we've mentioned this corner.

• Several weeks ago their was a post on Wendy’s that digressed to a discussion on 79th State.   In the post there was a discussion on a proposal to purchase/lease the vacant property at 79th State to build a Culver’s restaurant. 
  
  Statements were made suggesting that the city initiate imminent domain proceeding on the site which would force Carter Temple church to sell the property to the city. 
  
  The church board met this past weekend and decided that they needed to bring in a consultant to evaluate proposals and internal plans and make a recommendation on which was in the church’s best interest. No time frame was given in when a decision will be made. The church board includes local residents State Senator Elgie Sims and businessman Paul Williams. 
  
  Carter Temple which has been in the community for 40 + years purchased the property at 79th State approximately 20 years ago after a long fight with the property owner who had let the property diminish and become a nuisance in the community . The church had a vision to redevelop the building that was presented but found it too costly. The church has indicated they want to build a senior living facility with retail in a multistory building. Subsequently, the pastor at the time Henry Williamson was promoted and left the church. Over the past 15 years the church has had a string of pastors and the there has been differences of opinion within the church about the property. 
  
  The church has sought to stabilize the leadership team with the Rev.Joseph Gordon and board member Sims.
  
  As information comes forth will update.

PHOTOS: 79th & State Street with vacant lot and abandoned building from October 2009

And perhaps it's time to go to that corner and take some updated snapshots, almost 10 years later. Perhaps when the weather warms up or when the snow melts...