RE \\ USE \\ VIVERE \\ USE \\ VIVE

RE \\ USE \\ VIVE : ADAPTIVE REUSE IN CHICAGO’S WEST AND SOUTH SIDEARC 505 \\ THESIS PREPALEXANDRA MANTZOROS \\ ADVISOR L. BROWN [R. KORMAN & L. BOWNE]

CONTENTS00 ABSTRACT01 INTRODUCTION 01.1 ACTIONS BY THE CITY 01.2 EXISTING CONDITIONS 02 CONTENTION 01.1 CITY NETWORK 01.2 EXEMPLARY NEIGHBORHOODS 01.3 NEIGHBORHOOD DATA03 XX YY YY YY04 XX YY YY YY

00 ABSTRACTThe Chicago Public School System experiences school closures almost every year, this past year

being one of the largest closures to date. Despite studies showing the extreme detriment of closing community schools and the previously closed schools sitting and rotting in their

neighborhoods, CPS maintains that closure is the best course of action to remedy underutilized and underperforming schools. In response to the community and teacher driven outlash, the City formed

an advisory committee to address the 50 now-vacant buildings scattered across the West and South side. A year later, however, little progress has been made for the repurposing effort.

In areas that are often left to waste away while the metropolitan area of the city sees the forefront of architectural innovation and intervention, vacant buildings in the right hands could very well be a

blessing. The usual go-to for empty buildings in these neighborhoods is a renovation into something commercial, or in the case of especially “unsavory” areas, demolition. While not all of the school

buildings are historic landmarks, they still hold great importance to the residents of their surrounding communities, something heavily vocalized by the numerous protests made by community members. Almost all of the schools undergoing closure are located in neighborhoods of particularly low socio-

economic standing, and for many of the students school acts as a place of safety. Being forced to walk longer distances through these neighborhoods to get to a different school or having no school

to go to at all puts these children at risk for greater interaction with harmful and negative experiences or influences. While the academic achievement of many of Chicago’s pubic schools may

not be on par with that of the northern suburbs, simply closing these schools is an assured destruction for many of their students.

Frequent questions in both the realms of academia and practice are “What is architecture’s role in ‘social issues” and “Can architecture make a difference in these issues”. It is easy to say that a building cannot fix class warfare or the societal effects of political corruption. It is also easy (and

quite common) to declare trying to fix social issues at all is ‘above our heads’ and resign to do self-indulgent work. While the contention that architecture can singlehandedly solve overarching societal

problems is somewhat presumptuous, it is also irresponsible to have no vested interest in seeing what architecture can fix. Small interventions to address the immediate needs of those at stake can

serve to tide some day-to-day hardship while larger scale problems are addressed on a different front. As small scale design projects have a capacity to become ‘pet projects’, the distinction between

what people need versus what the architect/designer’s vision must be addressed.

01 INTRODUCTIONACTIONS BY THE CITY

On May 22, 2013 the Chicago Board of Education voted to close 50 of the system’s public schools, schools considered to be underperforming or underutilized. For the city of Chicago, the main factors in deciding to close a school are standardized test scores and building utilization, a student to capacity ratio. For this particular wave of closings, schools at 50% or less capacity

have been closed, and students attending schools with 30% or less capacity have been relo-cated to other schools. The subject of closings by the Chicago Public School administration has always been a tender one, but this recent incident has sparked some of the most widespread

protest from teachers, students, and parents alike, necessitating response from the Board.

On August 23, 2013, Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel created the Advisory Committee for School Repurposing and Community Development. This committee, comprised of various civic leaders, has been appointed to the task of developing a plan for the repurposing of these buildings. In the resulting report, the committee laid out their repurposing suggestions as follows (taken

from the Advisory Committee for School Repurposing and Community Development 2014 Report):

“PHASE ONE : IMMEDIATE REUSE \\ The first stage of the process is intended to identify and quickly put to use buildings that may help meet the programmatic needs of the City of Chicago

or other governmental agencies.

PHASE TWO : COMPETITIVE REDEPLOYMENT \\ The second stage will mark the first public offering of the properties not identified for immediate reuse.  Communities will be engaged to solicit input and the properties will be advertised through a public solicitation process. CPS will engage an Advisory Review and Evaluation Committee and the respective Aldermen to assess

the responses received through the solicitation. Both the bid (purchase price) and reuse proposal will be considered for each property. The properties will be conveyed “as-is, where-

is” in a sale transaction and CPS will not provide any mortgage or financing.

PHASE THREE : DEVELOPMENT THROUGH A REVITALIZATION PARTNER \\ The third stage is designed to allow CPS to engage a Revitalization Partner whose core business is real estate planning and

community development to assist in the repurposing of the remaining properties where a community or financial benefit is not readily available or apparent. The Revitalization

Partner will implement a similar community input process as described in the Phase Two.”

01 INTRODUCTION ACTIONS BY THE CITY

A year after the closings, the City of Chicago has made little progress in its plans to sell and repurpose the vacant buildings, the maintenance costs of which have been

steadily piling up. The bids for the buildings have been less than satisfactory, and, according to CPS, if there is no commercial or community interest generated the board

will work to “figure out something that the community would support and that CPS would not have to fund because at the end of the day [they] have to get these

buildings off [their] books”. Glossing over the avoidance of solving a self-created problem, and the fact the city was perfectly happy to sell off plots of land in

neighnorhoods such asHumboldt Park for $1 a piece, this lack of motion opens up an opportunity for these buildings to be changed for and by their communities. The

location of many of these closed schools makes them “tough sells” (in the words of CPS’s Tom Tyrrell), despite their proximity to the downtown area, so it seems unlikely

that major development groups would be willing to move in to make another wave of affordable luxury condos. The CPS has suggested moving private or charter schools into these empty buildings, a suggestion that received quite a bit of backlash from

many neighborhood residents.

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01 INTRODUCTION CLOSED SCHOOLS

The majority of the affected schools are located in the neighbhorhoods on the city’s West and South sides. With 50+ schools being closed, the CPS has also designated

existing schools to recieve the displaced students. This map denotes the locations of both schools that have been closed as well as those designated to recieve students.

01 INTRODUCTION SCHOOL AGE POPULATION

Many of the neighborhoods affected by the closings have actually seen a decrease in school age population up to 60% in some areas. While this may account for the low

density in schools, it does not necessarily mean there is a lack of people in need of schools. All affected neighborhoods have protested the closings, despite the number

of school-age children in their area.

01 INTRODUCTION INCOME BY NEIGHBORHOOD

Chicago has very small pockets of wealth, seen almost exclusively along the northern end of the lakefront. A greater deal of the city makes up the middle working class, with

some near west and southern neighborhoods making up the lowest income bracket. Surburbs outside of the city begin to fall back into the upper income bracket. As the

majority of industry and growth happens near the north shore, those neighborhoods further outside the city center tend to fall off the radar and begin to deminish.

01 INTRODUCTIONFOOD DESERTS

With information from the Mari Gallagher report on food deserts in Chicago, it is possible to map out which neighborhoods fall into this description. For many of these

neighborhoods, the only access to food is at corner stores or fast food restaurants. Most of these neighborhoods are on the south and west side, where income levels are

the lowest in the city.

01 INTRODUCTION OVERLAPPING CONDITIONS

By looking at this kind of neighborhood data together, it becomes apparent that the neighborhoods most affected by school closings are those that reside in areas of low

income and minimal access to fresh food, neighborhoods that will only see further decline by having more vacant buildings. For many of these neighborhoods, a school is

not only a place for learning, but something that draws the community together as well as providing a place of safety and enrichment for their children. With

these buildings now empty, there is little being done to aid these already blighted communities.

02 CONTENTIONCITY NETWORK

With the lakefront and Loop area being the main beneficiaries of the city’s budget, most of the closed schools are in the western and souther neighborhoods surround-

ing the metropolitan area. It is useful to consider these schools not only as individual sites but as a city-wide network that can be cultivated for the mutual benefit and

development of their respective neighborhoods. Chicago is well-serviced by public transit (typically the L train), and yet the interaction between many of these neighbor-

hoods is limited. Akin to New York City, being able to travel with ease between neigh-borhoods with different characters and resources to offer makes Chicago a versatile

and appealing city. This could be applied in a different way to the West and South side. Rather than shopping in the Gold Coast and taking the Red Line to eat vegan burritos in Wicker Park, residents of Humboldt Park could visit urban farms for produce in Garfield

Park while residents of Garfield Park could travel to Humboldt Park to participate in art programs and festivals with local artists. If each neighborhood has something to offer to another, and if vacant buildings are brought back into the community rather

than becoming hubs for illicit and dangerous activity, people may have more incentive to travel outside their own neighborhood, creating bonds in these often looked-over

areas.

02 CONTENTIONEXEMPLARY NEIGHBORHOODS

In order to create a smaller sample size of this network proposal, affected neighborhoods will be selected to be studied in further detail, proposing both a

network within themselves as well as how they may contribute to the city and network as a whole. Garfield Park, North Lawndale, and Englewood will serve as these

exemplary neighborhoods. Garfield Park and North Lawndale are on the west side of the city, and Englewood is on the south side. Each neighborhood falls into a low income bracket, are partially or fully considered a food desert, and have had a fair amount of schools closed in their neighborhood. With that in mind, reuse of empty

buildings in these neighborhoods seems especially crucial in the revitalization of the community as a whole. As well, each neighborhood has a particularly unique condition

that when examined will aid in finding ways to connect these neighborhoods to the city at large.

GARFIELD PARK

NORTH LAWNDALE

ENGLEWOOD

02 CONTENTIONNEIGHBORHOOD DATA \\ NORTH LAWNDALE

VACANTOCCUPIED/UTILIZED

TOTAL POPULATION39,920

RACIAL MAKEUP96% BLACK2.5% HISPANIC1.5% WHITE

ECONOMIC MAKEUP$25,228 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME47.3% OF POPULATION BELOW POVERTY LINE

EDUCATION LEVEL43.3% LESS THAN HIGHSCHOOL13% HIGHSCHOOL/GED5.3% 1> YEAR OF COLLEGE12.8% 1+ YEARS OF COLLEGE6.6% ASSOCIATE DEGREE7.2% BACHELOR’S DEGREE5.5% MASTER’S DEGREE4.5% PROFESSIONAL DEGREE2% DOCTORATE

VACANT

COMMERCIAL

INDUSTRIAL

INSTITUTIONALTRANSPORT/COMM

EDUCATIONALCOMMUNITY FACILITYRELIGIOUSRECREATIONAL

RESIDENTIAL

EDUCATIONAL1 \\ KIPP ASCEND CHARTER SCHOOL2 \\ DVORACK TECHNOLOGY ACADEMY

RELIGIOUS3 \\ ALL NATIONS CHURCH OF GOD AND CHRIST4 \\ GREATER SWEET HOME MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH5 \\ ALL SOULS CHURCH OF GOD IN CHRIST6 \\GREATER JASPER STONE MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH7 \\ BEVERLY TEMPLE CHURCH OF GOD AND CHRIST8 \\ PILLAR OF TRUTH CHURCH9 \\ GOSPEL MISSION PENTECOSTAL CHURCH10 \\ GREATER LOVE CHURCH OF GOD11 \\ AGAPE CHURCH12 \\ ISREAL OF GODS CHURCH13 \\ GREATER PROGRESSIVE MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH14 \\ HARMONY COMMUNITY CHURCH15 \\ LAWNDALE COMMUNITY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 16 \\ GRACE AND GLORY TABERNACLE BAPTIST CHURCH17 \\ OGDEN AVENUE CHURCH OF CHRIST18 \\ WESLEY CHAPEL COMMUNITY SPIRITUAL CHURCH19 \\ THE WORD CHURCH20 \\ HOLY ROCK HEALING TEMPLE

COMMUNITY21 \\ WESTSIDE ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNITY

02 CONTENTIONNEIGHBORHOOD DATA \\ NORTH LAWNDALE

1

17

18

2019

34

5

6

78

9

10

13

15

12

11

2

21

02 CONTENTIONNEIGHBORHOOD DATA \\ GARFIELD PARK

ECONOMIC MAKEUP$26,141 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME51.7% OF POPULATION BELOW POVERTY LINE

TOTAL POPULATION24,829

RACIAL MAKEUP97% BLACK2% HISPANIC1% WHITE

VACANTOCCUPIED/UTILIZED

EDUCATION LEVEL37.1% LESS THAN HIGHSCHOOL12.2% HIGHSCHOOL/GED5% 1> YEAR OF COLLEGE14.3% 1+ YEARS OF COLLEGE7.1% ASSOCIATE DEGREE9.3% BACHELOR’S DEGREE4.2% MASTER’S DEGREE7.6% PROFESSIONAL DEGREE3.2% DOCTORATE

EDUCATIONAL00 \\ XX

RELIGIOUS00 \\ XX

COMMUNITY00 \\ XX

02 CONTENTIONNEIGHBORHOOD DATA \\ GARFIELD PARK

VACANT

COMMERCIAL

INDUSTRIAL

INSTITUTIONALTRANSPORT/COMM

EDUCATIONALCOMMUNITY FACILITYRELIGIOUSRECREATIONAL

RESIDENTIAL

ECONOMIC MAKEUP$24,049 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME49.5% OF POPULATION BELOW POVERTY LINE

TOTAL POPULATION37,827

RACIAL MAKEUP97% BLACK47% HISPANIC6% WHITE

02 CONTENTIONNEIGHBORHOOD DATA \\ ENGLEWOOD

EDUCATION LEVEL43.1% LESS THAN HIGHSCHOOL10.8% HIGHSCHOOL/GED6.1% 1> YEAR OF COLLEGE12.8% 1+ YEARS OF COLLEGE6.6% ASSOCIATE DEGREE6.5% BACHELOR’S DEGREE4.4% MASTER’S DEGREE5.8% PROFESSIONAL DEGREE4% DOCTORATE

VACANTRESIDENTIAL

02 CONTENTIONNEIGHBORHOOD DATA \\ ENGLEWOOD

EDUCATIONAL00 \\ XX

RELIGIOUS00 \\ XX

COMMUNITY00 \\ XX

VACANT

COMMERCIAL

INDUSTRIAL

INSTITUTIONALTRANSPORT/COMM

EDUCATIONALCOMMUNITY FACILITYRELIGIOUSRECREATIONAL

RESIDENTIAL

02 CONTENTIONOne of the major deciding factors in closing a school is its level of

utilization. The CPS defines this simply as a current student to possible capacity ratio. Many of these closing schools are large historic buildings, with

capacities near 1000 people. Rather than bringing more students to these schools, newer schools with capacities in the low hundreds are filled up with

displaced students. As the trend for merging schools is a decline in academics due to a disproportionate student to teacher ratio, it may be useful to consider a way to spread this population more evenly throughout the

neighborhood. One of the CPS board’s main arguments for closing schools is that lower student populations make the school more expensive to maintain,

however if profitable endeavors can be programmed into the closed buildings, there may be a possibility to restore a student population as well. These students will then have the opportunity to engage with the new, varied

programs taking place in the same building as their classes.

To repurpose the empty buildings in a manner that best fits their communities, it is beneficial to look at the work of the New Communities Program in Chicago.

A long-term project of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the NCP seeks to promote “comprehensive” development in its neighborhoods of focus, supporting and growing upon local initiatives to preserve the existing

structure rather than give way to gentrification. Garfield Park, North Lawndale, and Englewood are all on the list of the NCP’s focal communities. For each

community exists a “Quality of Life Plan”, a collaborative effort between local residents, leaders, and agencies. These Plans are community-centric, denoting the needs and wants of those who live there. While there are many large-scale infrastructural proposals, there are also suggestions of smaller, more localized

programs such as performance groups that may not have a defined space to start up. By going through these Plans, it is possible to glean what desires the communities have denoted and intervene in the existing vacant buildings to

address these needs.

02 CONTENTIONGARFIELD PARK

The two main initiatives of the Quality of Life Plan for Garfield Park are the Garfield Market Place and creating an artist community. The large conservancy in the center of the neighborhood already houses the beginnings of the market place, and is set to house exhibitions by local artists as well. In order to create

a sort of network throughout the neighborhood, the vacant school buildings can be utilized as extensions of these initiatives. Architectural intervention in these cases may take the form of makers’ spaces and studios, as well as the

framework for urban farming to contribute to the growing marketplace. These spaces can be used in conjunction with the community youth and students,

providing education in art and agriculture and allowing the children to cultivate new skills.

NORTH LAWNDALE

There are multiple needs outlined in the Lawndale Quality of Life Plan, the most prominent of which being a need for housing and support of the 500+ ex-

prisoners being reintroduced into the neighborhood. This is unique of Lawndale, and so a different strategy may be in order. The vacant schools in

this case can be used as transitional housing for those re-entering the community, learning from existing programs (Lawndale Hope House, Leslie’s

Place) to help in the process of reintegration. As the Quality of Life Plan for Lawndale also calls for urban farming, it seems prudent to use the help of those living in the transitional housing to build and cultivate the farm lots,

something that will both give them working skills and knowledge as well as benefit the community at large. As many of the schools in Lawndale are

underutilized (the number of students being far below the full capacity of the building), it may be possible to reprogram the unused space in these schools for community/family centers that are called for in the Plan. If there are more engaging programs taking place in the school building, it may aid in student

retention as well as parental involvement in the schools.

ENGLEWOODThe key points of the Quality of Life Plan for Englewood are the desires to introduce urban farming to the area as well as re-establish existing local

business owners and provide more career opportunities for community members. Just north of the neighborhood border is the Wood Street Urban

Farm, a small but growing organization that supplies to many restaurants in Chicago and seeks to employ people from the local area. As Englewood has a good deal of vacant lots, as well as now-vacant schools, it may be useful to extend the benefits of urban farming into the neighborhood itself, allowing

residents access to fresh produce within their own community,. This can also provide the opportunity for community members to learn skills involved with growing, as well as allow them to begin establishing local grocery stores and

co-ops. This will not only begin to diminish the many food deserts in the neighborhood, but encourage the growth of local business rather than

implanting large-scale commercial endeavors.

02 CONTENTIONLIST OF SCHOOLS

GARFIELD PARK

CLOSING \\ Guglielmo Marconi Elementary Community Academy | Nathan R. Goldblatt Elementary School | John Calhoun North Elementary School | Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School

RECEIVING \\ Helen M Hefferan Elementary School | George W Tilton Elementary School | John Milton Gregory Elementary School | Jensen Elementary Scholastic Academy| Willa Cather Elementary School

LAWNDALE

CLOSING \\ Matthew A Henson Elementary School | Nathaniel Pope Elementary School

RECEIVING \\ Charles Evans Hughes Elementary School | James Weldon Johnson Elementary School | Lazaro Cardenas Elementary School | Rosario Castellanos Elementary School

ENGLEWOOD

CLOSING \\ Arna W. Bontemps Elementary School | Charles W. Earle Elementary School | Daniel Wentworth Elementary School | Woods Elementary Math and Science Academy

RECEIVING \\ Nicholson Technoloy Academy |