Lincoln Square Neighbors Move Into Affordable Apartments Fought For By Community

LINCOLN SQUARE — A $43 million affordable housing development near the heart of Lincoln Square is now open to neighbors in need of stable housing who would otherwise have been displaced by high rents.

Developer Community Builders broke ground on the Canvas At Leland Plaza project at 4715 N. Western Ave. in July 2023 and completed construction last October.

The developer joined city officials Wednesday at a ribbon cutting celebrating the project that will add 63 affordable apartments to the busy Lincoln Square intersection across from the Western Avenue Brown Line stop.

“Locations like Lincoln Square, those that are rich in amenities and services, they are increasingly unaffordable to too many Chicagoans,” said William Woodley, senior vice president of real estate development at Community Builders. “This includes many in the workforce at the nearby local businesses that make Lincoln Square so special.”

Woodley was joined by Ald. Matt Martin (47th) and other city officials as well as some of the development’s new tenants for the ribbon cutting Wednesday. Holding back tears, Martin shared a story of his childhood and how a development like the Canvas At Leland Plaza could have helped his family when they were in need years ago. Martin was raised in Arizona by his mom, who worked two jobs at times to make ends meet, according to his bio.

“At the end of the day, this place will make it possible for people like me to live in places like Lincoln Square,” Martin said. “When I was growing up, we had trouble finding and keeping a home we could afford.”

Community Builders was pre-approved for highly competitive tax credits in 2021, after two years of tense community meetings about bringing low-cost units to the increasingly expensive area while maintaining business district parking.

Stakeholders sought to strike a balance between preserving public parking — the site was formerly a parking lot — and adding badly needed affordable housing to the neighborhood.

City leaders previously said they did not want to use tax credits to subsidize so much public parking when their priority is maximizing affordable housing and encouraging public transit. The new building is across from the Western Avenue Brown Line and several bus lines.

As a result, the building was redesigned to be six stories tall instead of five and have 63 affordable apartments instead of 51. A second-floor parking deck will have 36 spaces, half for residents and the rest for the public, down from an earlier plan that would have had 41 spaces.

“If you can’t find and keep a home that you can afford, it’s hard to keep that community fabric strong, thriving, growing and sustaining all of the many wonderful things that make our community special,” Martin said.

Supporters of the development have pointed to the explosion of expensive housing in the neighborhood, part of a citywide trend in which two-, three-, and four-flats are being replaced by single-family homes in wealthier areas like Lincoln Square and North Center.

“I was more than gracious when I saw my apartment, I couldn’t believe it,” said Rosemary Dougal, 62, a tenant at Canvas At Leland.

She’s lived in Lincoln Square for years and considers it her “happy place.” However, keeping an apartment in the neighborhood on her fixed income was becoming more difficult since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she said.

“It’s not just people who are lower income, but this also helps people who also might have disabilities like I have, or just someone aging in general. They can no longer work like they have their whole lives and have lost their stability of income,” Dougal said. “This being here when we need it as elders as well has been really something to be grateful for.”

Neighbors who opposed the plan hung a banner that said “ALD. MARTIN NO CHA HERE” on the parking lot in 2021. Maureen Sullivan, owner of the now-shuttered Spyners Pub, 4623 N. Western Ave., tried to stop the development with a petition arguing that it would hurt local businesses.

Neighbors opposed to the development also complained to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, who joined a community meeting to raise concerns about losing parking and festival space to the new housing.

The final design was approved by city officials in 2022.

“I do just want to reemphasize, in a time and a moment in history where we feel the doors of fascism falling in on us and closing in on us, that fighting for a neighborhood that actually reflects the values we believe in is a way of pushing back against that,” said Alex Nelson, a member of Build Housing Now.

The group is a coalition of neighborhood residents and business owners who advocated for the construction of the project, rallying other neighbors to support the plan when it was unclear if the project would move forward due to loss of parking concerns.

“Here in Lincoln Square, and everybody in this room today, has done that,” Nelson said. “We have said, ‘No, we want a neighborhood that stands for and looks like the world we want to live in.’ And we’re going to continue fighting for that. We’re going to continue pushing for that.”

In addition to the affordable apartments, the development also features ground-floor commercial space, a rooftop lounge, bicycle parking and other amenities.

Community Builders has “lots of prospects” for the 5,500-square-foot commercial space and is still reviewing pitches but isn’t yet ready to share information about who it might be, Woodley said.

“But we’re excited about this new space and all the interest in it,” he said.

Other design changes included moving the building’s parking entrance back to Western Avenue instead of an alley off Leland and adding an expanded outdoor public space consistent with the plaza across the street, officials previously said.

The southeast corner of Western and Leland avenues is one of the areas of improvement highlighted in the 2019 Lincoln Square Master Plan. The area is outdated, unsightly and needs an overhaul to improve visual continuity and access to nearby shops and restaurants, according to a 2018 study.

The intersection of Leland and Western will have a flurry of construction activity this year, with improvements coming to the Brown Line plaza, upgrades to the Western Brown Line station and the expansion of the Leland Neighborhood Greenway.

“This really was a community effort to come together and say that this is needed. We need more homes that people can live in. It’s going to make Lincoln Square stronger. It’s going to make Lincoln Square better, and it’s going to be a reflection of our community’s values,” Martin said.

Support Local News!

Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? Click here to gift a subscription, or you can support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.

Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast: