DESTINATION: SOUTH SIDE
Affordability, new construction pulling buyers from suburbs, North Side

By Jeanette Almada
Special to the Tribune
Published December 11, 2005

Chicago's South Side is attracting home shoppers and buyers these days from well beyond its borders.

Prices in most neighborhoods have shown healthy increases, outstripping many more affluent city and suburban communities.

Ironically, the effects of decades of disinvestment in some South Side neighborhoods has contributed to a revival of residential development: a good stock of high-quality buildings to rehab and plenty of vacant land to build on. And as more projects have gone up, the South Side has become more inticing to home shoppers, real estate experts say, attracting people from the suburbs, the North Side and even out of state. And, we're not talking South Loop here.

For Heather and Jonathan Taylor, it was a no-brainer in 2003 when they bought their condo in South Shore.

"The real estate here is gorgeous and where else can you buy at $100 a square foot? And, aside from that, [condominium] assessments on the North Side are $700 or $800 instead of $200 that we are paying," Heather Taylor said.

The couple came to South Shore from Edgewater, but before that they had lived in a list of North and Northwest Side neighborhoods, including WickerPark, Lakeview and Lincoln Square.

"They all became too expensive to live in. Now we have managed to buy into a beautiful building that had been vacant for a long time, in a hot neighborhood, and without pushing longtime residents out," Heather said.

"In neighborhoods like Woodlawn and South Shore, North Kenwood/Oakland and Bronzeville, you get more bang for your buck," said Tony, an agent on the South Side. "Property prices are still good, especially when compared to the North Side. But the lifestyle is also great. You have the lake, the park, beautiful beaches, the 18-hole Jackson Park golf courses."

All are virtues long cherished by South Siders, who say newcomers are finally catching on.

"It makes sense that people are attracted to the South Side," said lifelong South Sider Valerie Jarrett, a vice president at Habitat Co. and a member of the Southeast Chicago Commission, a community organization that focuses on development issues in Hyde Park, North Kenwood, Oakland and Woodlawn.

"I am a South Sider by choice. I could live anywhere I want to," Jarrett said. "Not only does the South Side have all of the amenities you find on the North Side at less expensive prices, but it's beautiful. I think my view of the north lakefront is better than the lakefront views I always see in the paper, looking south from the North Side," she added.

Years of under-investment left many South Side Neighborhoods with either vacant but high-quality buildings such as those in South Shore, or vacant land -- both setting the stage for new development.

"There is strong developer interest in the entire South Side region," said Judy Minor-Jackson, deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development's South Side region. That developer interest is creating momentum for rebirth of a string of South Side neighborhoods.

"You can really sense that there is a lot going on," said Eraina Ross, who moved earlier this month from south suburban Lansing to a newly rehabbed condo in the Washington Park neighborhood. "Indiana Avenue near 47th Street is super hot, and there is so much development underway near 50th [Street] and King Drive. Every block has new buildings going up and old buildings that you can see are being rehabbed."

Ross was lured by the low price of her 2-bedroom condo. "I was driving through the neighborhood and saw that price on the building. I said, `Where else am I going to find a condo for $129,000 in the city?'"

The sheer number of new South Side developments has created interest that draws buyers.

"I liked what I saw when I visited Shakespeare Court" in North Kenwood, " said Dana Anderson, a Palatine resident who bought her North Kenwood/Oakland condo from plans. "And when I visited Drexel Boulevard, it kind of reminded me of Harlem. It had that kind of soul," Anderson said, adding that her family hails from the famed New York City neighborhood. "I was drawn to the price, and like the lake and the park. But mostly, on the South Side I feel like I am part of something new, something that is happening," Anderson said.

She will move into her condo at the Jazz on the Boulevard development in May.

The exact number of South Side newcomers has been difficult to track for community groups and neighborhood leaders who usually monitor such activity. Researchers interviewed for this story say they have not measured movement into the South Side.

But South Side real estate agents attest to an influx of home shoppers coming from well beyond the South Side.

"We are getting buyers from as far as Palos Hills, Wadsworth and Gurnee," said Robbi Davis, sales manager at Jazz on the Boulevard.

"People are looking for value after being priced out of so many neighborhoods," said Margie, a broker in Hyde Park. "If enough people gravitate to an area, that is all the more incentive. People create neighborhoods and the more people are invested in the street where they live, the better the street's going to be.

"But home buyers are looking for the right home at the right price, not for the neighborhood," Margie said. "When they get to the product they want and like the price, then they say, `OK, tell us about the neighborhood.'"

Realty agents see the lakefront -- Douglas, North Kenwood/Oakland, Woodlawn and South Shore -- as hot, but housing markets are warming up west of the lakefront too.

"These days Englewood and Washington Park are of interest to buyers," Margie said. "Even the Far South Side is starting to happen. It is still a little quieter, but, again, as people are priced out of [northern] South Side neighborhoods, they move" farther south, Margie said.

"Washington Park will have a whole new landscape in the next three years," @ Property's Tony said. "It will be more of a walking neighborhood with more storefronts and more and more abandoned buildings renewed."

Jackson of the Planning Department said, "There is a lot of interest in Washington Park and we are meeting with a developer who will build a large sustainable, mixed-use project to go up from 59th to 63rd Street and between the Dan Ryan Expressway and Wentworth Avenue. We are also working to see Cottage Grove [Avenue] revitalized from Woodlawn Avenue to 63rd Street."

To a large extent, the South Side resurgence overrides decades of disinvestment and middle-class flight.

Former Lansing resident Ross, who now lives in a Washington Park condo, "moved away from the city, to a place where I could raise my kids, but deep down I was always a city girl and wanted to return to the culture, the action," she said.

When she stumbled onto her condo during a drive through the neighborhood, Ross's brother, himself a South Sider, cautioned against buying in an area long considered rough. "When he saw all the development under way around my building, he changed his mind," Ross said.

And technology is doing its part for the South Side real estate market. Internet shoppers don't seem to be carrying the same baggage that others might. "Online shopping underscores the highly competitive prices when compared to similar properties on the North Side," Margie said. "Many of those shoppers are younger and don't have the biases about the South Side that some older home buyers may have."

Some buyers find their South Side homes via mortgage subsidies offered by the Chicago Department of Housing's New Homes for Chicago Program, or mortgage discounts offered by banks that are promoting targeted neighborhoods.

"Our bank offered us a discounted mortgage if we bought in any of six or seven neighborhoods," Heather Taylor said. And those included Far North Side Rogers Park as well as southern neighborhoods like Woodlawn and SouthShore. "But we had our own requirements, which included that we get a garage and that there be good transportation," Taylor said.

Home shoppers also are seeking to cut their commutes, real estate experts say, and South Side neighborhoods have the location advantage. "People are interested in being near [Chicago Transit Authority] bus routes and train lines, they want to be able to get in and out of their neighborhoods easily," Smigel said.

"There is no question that a sea of change is happening on the South Side," said developer and George Ranney Jr., a developer and former South Sider who serves on the University of Chicago's board of directors. "That trend started years ago when the mayor talked about bringing the middle class back to the area.

"My wife and I bought a house at 47th Street and Woodlawn Avenue for practically nothing in 1967 when we went to the University of Chicago. We lived there for 33 years," said Ranney, who left the neighborhood to launch the Prairie Crossing development in Grayslake.

"Now it is amazing what has happened there in the last few years," Ranney said. "The South Side's story is a major story about what is happening to cities across the country."

Despite all of the residential development in many South Side neighborhoods, retailers have been slower to follow.

Homeowners, especially North Side transplants, complain that they still shop and dine on the North Side.

"There is disposable income in the area that retailers don't seem to be aware of," Taylor said. "My building alone is a rehabbed building filled with people who came in from Hyde Park and other areas, and with disposable income. Yet there are no restaurants. We still go to the North Side for movies, shopping and dining," Taylor said.

"Retailers are expressing some interest in our commercial areas, but are still using old demographics, from 2000," said Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), who has for years courted retailers to open shops on several commercial streets in South Shore. "But we have a problem drawing big box retailers to the area because our commercial strips do not have enough space for parking," Hairston said.

But dyed-in-the-wool South Sider Jarrett says, "Now there is so much [big box development] happening on Roosevelt Road, a Whole Foods is even coming there. It is easy to get to [from the South Side] and it doesn't have the congestion that you find in some North Side shopping districts like Clybourn Avenue -- a great place to visit but you do not want to live there."