$10M Chicago Prize finalists want to revitalize 6 South, West side neighborhoods
Teams from six South and West side neighborhoods are in the running for $10 million to fund a variety of proposals — from cleanenergy projects to affordable housing initiatives — that would create economic opportunities in their areas.
More than 80 teams pitched their project ideas to the Pritzker Traubert Foundation for its Chicago Prize Challenge. The competition’s six finalists — who all won $100,000 planning grants — were announced Wednesday evening at the Hatchery in East Garfield Park.
The finalists included teams of grassroots organizations from Auburn Gresham, Little Village, Englewood, North Lawndale, Austin and South Chicago. The $10 million prize winner is to be announced in the spring.
Fourteen other teams will each receive a $10,000 grant from the foundation supporting their proposals.
The Auburn-Gresham team proposed turning a long-vacant office building into a health center; converting a nine-acre brownfield into a renewable energy and urban farming campus; and repurposing a former school into a center with affordable housing, job training and business incubation services.
“Bringing these projects to life will bring living-wage jobs and build wealth for residents in our community,” said Carlos Nelson CEO of the Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corporation.
Finalists from Little Village proposed redeveloping a vacant fire station into a commercial kitchen for food entrepreneurs, community meeting space and urban farming center.
“Little Village is such a foodcentric neighborhood, so this allows us to focus on what we’re good at as a community,” said Kim Wasserman, executive director at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.
Rami Nashashibi, executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, said his team’s proposal for the neighborhood would help advance the grassroots work that’s been done in the neighborhood for decades.
His team proposed transforming the intersection of 63rd and Racine by turning a two-story building into a food co-op, building a new mixed-use development and repurposing a vacant school into a local recycling center.
The North Lawndale team proposed multiple developments, including a new Mount Sinai surgical center, affordable housing on vacant lots and a community hub of workforce programs, social enterprises and pop-up retail spaces.
For the Austin neighborhood, groups proposed creating a new early learning center; a health and recreation facility; education opportunities at Austin College and Career Academy; affordable housing and a business incubator. Many of the developments would be built on vacant and scattered city-owned lots.
The final team, of South Chicago, proposed several projects to revitalize stretches of east 91st and 92nd streets near the lakefront. The nine projects would create new affordable housing, multifamily units, a grocery store, arts and recreation centers and a workforce development cafe.