Jonathan Bullington, TribLocal reporter
Evanston recently applied for a $2.5 million federal grant to help build a west side development dubbed Emerson Square.
Bounded by Emerson Street and Foster Street, the nearly five-acre parcel sits on a vacant industrial site and auto dealer parking lot that city officials say acts as a physical barrier, severing the neighborhood and making pedestrian travel difficult.
The money would be used to create about 67 units of affordable housing, from town homes and condos to single family homes, both for rent and to own.
Emerson Square would also see a new central park to replace Gilbert Park, which city officials have said is home to “significant criminal activity due to its poor layout and design.”
Emerson Square is the centerpiece of the city’s West Evanston Master Plan, approved in 2007. Early this year, the city received about $18 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 funds to purchase foreclosed and abandoned properties on the city’s south and west sides.
Because funds awarded in that grant were lower than what was sought, city officials had planned to develop Emerson Square in two phases, turning to other sources such as Low Income Housing Tax Credits, tax increment financing, and private funding.
But if the city gets the $2.5 million from HUD’s Sustainable Community Challenge Planning Grant program, officials claim the work could be done in one phase, shaving two years and nearly $1.9 million from the project.
“It will help us do some of the kinds of things we’ve been talking about doing for many years,” said 5th Ward Ald. Delores Holmes, whose ward includes the Emerson Square site. “This new grant will allow us to take another step.”
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., joined city officials for a tour of the proposed site Wednesday and said her office would “work as hard as we can” to secure the grant money for Evanston.
“I have every hope to help promote this project as an investment that is going to yield enormous results for this community both in the way of jobs, in the way of spurring further development and spurring on the private sector,” she said.
“I think at this time particularly, when we’re in a recession, that this kind of effective public spending equals deficit reduction,” she said.
“You get people on their feet,” she added. “You get people in good housing. You help create jobs. And suddenly, you are growing the economy not only of this community, but of this country. That is exactly what we need to do right now to head us into a period of economic growth.”
Schakowsky touted the city’s track record of winning federal dollars, but did not know what competition Evanston would face for this current grant application.
But city officials said the need for this development was great. Evanston’s application states that the area around the proposed development has the lowest median household income in the city, with more than 16 percent of the population living in poverty.
And the 1900 block of Jackson St., located directly adjacent to the Emerson Square site, has been the location of serious criminal activity for more than 30 years, and has been known as the “worst block in the city,” according to the city’s grant application.
Though crime has dropped in the area by nearly 70 percent, according to the application, the area still poses challenges for law enforcement due to its non-connected streets, which provide a greater opportunity for hidden illegal activity.
“[The current site] really needs something done with it,” Holmes said. “To be able to have affordable housing for folks who live in this community and want to stay in the Evanston community and just simply can’t afford it will just mean so much.”
Those who live in the area had mixed emotions with the proposed development. Some expressed concern that the development would negatively impact the price of surrounding homes, or would cause long-time residents to be forced out as the development grows.
Others saw the development in a more positive light.
“I think it would be a good thing,” said Jesse Brown, 80, a life-long Evanston resident who lives next to the Emerson Square site. “It might change the neighborhood.”
