CHICAGO, IL – Interfaith Housing Development Corporation (IHDC), announced the completion of its latest housing development, Fifth Avenue Apartments, providing 72 new affordable housing units in the Village of Maywood, a western suburb of Chicago. The development has been made possible thanks to four major financial partners along with an energy efficiency grant from ComEd. These financial partners include the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA), the Cook County Department of Plotting and Development, the Richman Group Affordable Housing Corporation, and Bank of America. The Chicago Community Loan Fund also provided pre-development lending prior to construction.
Located at 800 South 5th Avenue, a site bought from the Village of Maywood in 2019, the apartment development was built at a rapid pace in order to provide much-needed affordable housing support for the Maywood community. The building was designed with offsite prefabricated architectural precast panels that include thin brick, form liner and a limestone sandblast exterior end. This smart design and construction approach meant that the entire building structure was assembled in just 35 days.
“We started accepting lease applications in the Fall of 2020 and received more than 3,000 applicants for these 72 units,” said Perry Vietti, the President of Interfaith Housing. “We knew the need for affordable housing was fantastic in this community, but with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s clear it has become even greater.”
The new building is located on 5th Avenue, a pedestrian-oriented commercial corridor which is the main street for the Village of Maywood, providing its new tenants simple access to transit, education, and retail. The building is home to studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom residential units along with interior and exterior shared community spaces for resident use. A 5,500 square foot retail space on the ground floor, not yet occupied, is slated for grocery store use.
“Affordable housing is the backbone of our communities and we’re glad to see this development open its doors to the residents of Cook County,” said Toni Preckwinkle, President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. “Interfaith has done an incredible job of bringing this building to life quickly, and we are grateful to have them as our partner helping to fulfill this critical community need.”
This development was specifically designed to serve working families and individuals, with 19 of the residences set aside for special needs populations, 8 for homeless veterans, and 11 residences allocated for residents from the Illinois State Referral Network. The building’s first occupants are being selected based on their ability to meet the Federal income criteria for affordable housing programs. Maintaining its affordability status for a minimum of forty years, the five-tale development will provide affordable housing for households at or below 60 percent of area median income (AMI).
The development has been designed by national integrated architecture and engineering firm, HED, and built by Chicago-based McShane Construction Company. The IHDC development team established early in the project a desire to achieve high levels of environmental sustainability, in an effort to best serve its resident population’s health. The project was chosen for the International Living Future Institute’s pilot program for affordable housing. While state regulation precluded the receipt of the Living Building Challenge certification the team’s participation in the program, will ultimately benefit countless affordable housing projects around the country as the research continues to develop.
“Through our collaborative partnership with the HED design team, and in spite of the supply chain challenges seen around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are excited to be delivering this building for occupancy one month earlier than anticipated. As a result, residents are now moving in, finding new opportunities for their own lives and relieving pressure on the area’s shelter resources,” said Jason Breden, Vice President of McShane Construction Company.
Additional project team members supporting the design and development of the Fifth Avenue Apartments project include SITE Design for landscape architecture, and Ericksson Engineering for civil engineering. Property management will be provided by Interfaith Management Services, an affiliate of Interfaith Housing Development Corporation that currently manages the 12 additional affordable housing developments owned by Interfaith.
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