Chicago Reader: Pullman to get first new residential building in nearly 50 years

Via Chicago Neighborhoods

More changes coming to the historically and architecturally significant Pullman neighborhood.

The $18 million Pullman Artspace Lofts will be built on land that's been vacant for 88 years.https://t.co/BlW7gLqdgk

— Chicago Reader (@Chicago_Reader) July 10, 2018

The historic Pullman neighborhood is getting 38 units of affordable housing inside a new $18 million artists' enclave—some 124 years after Pullman railroad car workers went on strike over the company's refusal to lower their rents after cutting their pay.

The Pullman Artspace Lofts, a new apartment building to be built between two long-abandoned Pullman workers' housing units, sits on three-quarters of an acre on Langley Avenue, just south of 111th Street. The three-story, 32,000-square-foot complex sits on land that's been vacant for 88 years. The construction itself marks the first new residential development built in Pullman in nearly half a century. It's unique because it will house 2,000 square feet of community space intended to be used as an art gallery, meeting place, classrooms, and community room. It's expected to open in early fall 2019.

The Artspace Lofts is a home-grown project in a neighborhood that has more than its share of artists, including painters, musicians, filmmakers, sculptors, and ceramicists, said architect Ann Alspaugh, a board member and past president of Pullman Arts, a neighborhood nonprofit whose volunteers have worked on the development for the past eight years.

"It's [the result of] a lot of hard work by a lot of people," she said, noting that the project required meeting and even exceeding local and state landmark and historic district requirements, obtaining unconventional funding, and conducting detailed feasibility studies. 

 I might have a few shots of the land where these lofts are to be located to be shared in the future. There was a period of time that I strolled through Pullman either on foot or driving where I took a series of photographs. And surely the work in Pullman is still not completed at least not yet!