Edison Park project calls for 82 units; committee plans to vote in April

by BRIAN NADIG

A revised four-story proposal for the former M.J. Suerth Funeral Home site in Edison Park, 6750-60 N. Northwest Hwy., was met with mixed reactions at the March 25 meeting of the 41st Ward Zoning Advisory Committee.

One resident said that a large mixed-used project is needed to help the Edison Park business district compete with other nearby commercial areas. ”I think we are being outpaced by Park Ridge, Rosemont … and even Norwood Park,” he said.

Another said, “We need a life pump into this neighborhood,” and this project would be “perfect” for the area’s revitalization.

Others called for the development to be scaled back.

“Eighty-two … rental units doesn’t enrich the (neighborhood),” one audience member said, adding that the success of the neighborhood is based on home ownership. “Downzone it, please.”

Another said that the proposed height of the two buildings, which would range from about 50 to 56 feet, would not fit in with the rest of the business district, suggesting that three stories would be more appropriate.

Plans call for two four-story, courtyard-style buildings with a total of 82 apartments, 82 parking spaces and 4,900 square feet of commercial space. The previous proposal called for two five-story structures with a total of 80 units and about 68 parking spaces.

Project officials said that the height reduction along with a variety of facade elements, including balconies, is aimed at addressing the community’s concern that the originally proposed buildings would be too large. Some residents said at a committee meeting last fall that the scale of the complex wold be out of character with the neighborhood.

Forty bedrooms were eliminated from the previous proposal in order to eliminate a floor from each building.

“This is radically different in terms of mass,” advisory committee member Marc Pelini said. “They have made a significant change to the mass of (each) building.”

Plans call for each building to have 26 interior parking spaces that would be accessible from a curb cut on Oshkosh Avenue or Northwest Highway.  Each also would have 15 additional non-garage parking spaces along the rear alley.

One resident expressed concern that the complex would not have enough parking for families with more than one car.  “Where are they going to go?” she said. “Everything is metered or Metra around here.”

Concerns also were raised about parking for visitors to the storefronts in the complex. It was reported that free parking is available in a nearby Edison Park Chamber of Commerce parking lot and paid parking, $2 for 12 hours, is available in the Metra lot.

“Commercial parking during the day is not a big issue,” committee member Frank Icuss said.

Monthly rents for a 1,000-square-foot apartment in the complex would be about $3,000. The units would range from about 650 to 1,300 square feet.

In response to questions about whether the complex would have Section 8 voucher holders or migrants as tenants, project attorney Nick Ftikas said, “It’s clearly not our market” given the projected rents but it would be “illegal for me to say” vouchers would be prohibited.

Under city law 16 affordable housing units would be required for the project, but the developer plans to do a partial buyout of the requirement and include only eight affordable units on site. Affordable units are intended to provide below-market rate rents to households earning less than the area median income.

The advisory committee plans to meet in about a month to take a vote on the proposal. Its votes serve as recommendations to Alderman Anthony Napolitano.

Icuss said that he has heard similar  complaints about other proposals that have come before the committee and that those concerns don’t come to fruition once the project is built, citing a Starbucks that recently opened at Harlem Avenue and Bryn Mawr Avenue. He said that coffee house has not generated the noise and traffic problems that sone said it would.

If approved, the proposed complex would be constructed in two phases, one building at a time.

The March 25 meeting was held at the Olympia Park fieldhouse, 6566 N. Avondale Ave. About 150 people attended, compared to more than 200 at the meeting last fall.

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