(Crain’s) — A pioneering effort to develop a 221-unit apartment building on the scruffy border of Evanston and Rogers Park has been whacked by a $38.2-million foreclosure lawsuit. PNC Bank alleges that a venture that includes a sister company, investment giant BlackRock Inc., and the estate of Schaumburg developer William J. Walsh, who died last year, failed to make the April interest payment on a construction loan for Howard Street Station, 413-421 Howard St. in Evanston.
The 17-story building is next to a CTA rail yard on a stretch of Howard Street that has undergone a bit of a revival in recent years. Source/Read more.
16 comments:
DevCorp jumps ship. The Kopley building residents are up in arms with 1791 West Howard.
Yeah, Howard is changing.
===since Howard Street Station opened in July, it has struggled to attract tenants or command top rents.===
Gee, wonder why?
Guess "build it and they will come" only works on Iowa cornfield baseball diamonds. Here's a hint, developers: no one wants to fight thugs to get into their own home, or be afraid to stand on their balcony for fear of being shot like a duck in a shooting gallery. Maybe if they make it clear to the alderman that potential votes could fill that building, THEN it might be a problem worth addressing.
Yaaaaaaawn- another day, another big commercial foreclosure. We're just at the beginning of a monster wave of commercial foreclosures.
Let's hope they drop the rents to market levels, instead of turning to the failing landlord's favorite bailout: Section 8, which is what they usually do to collect above-market rents. We need to be vigilant to make sure that that does not happen with this building.
I took a tour of the Morgan Station bldg, the new midrise on Sheridan by the Loyola el, at the opposite end of the nabe. I was offered a big one-bed for $350 off the rental advertised in the marketing lit. I think this is a trend, especially since many condo conversions are reverting to rental. The Morgan is a very good bldg, too; very attractive apts. with all the bells and whistles, beautiful roof deck, best soundproofing I ever saw- you couldn't hear the train from the apt. with the windows closed.
Many more middle-income people will be renting rather than buying because of fears for their jobs, and much tighter lending standards. They just won't be paying the kind of rents that new high rise buildings usually want.
"... or be afraid to stand on their balcony for fear of being shot like a duck in a shooting gallery..."
MOTS, that made my lunch. Thanks. :)
MOTS said, "Maybe if they make it clear to the alderman that potential votes could fill that building, THEN it might be a problem worth addressing."
The Howard Street Station(Skyline Apartments)is not in Chicago...it's in Evanston's 8th ward. Ann Rainey is the Alderperson and I doubt she would support turning the property into 'subsidized housing'.
The key to changing the conditions NOH and along Howard Street is in DECONCENTRATING the poverty and very low-income rental housing in the NOH neighborhood. The poverty rate NOH is around 44% of all households and virtually all rental property is subsidized!
It's not rocket science!
I thought that building looked very empty when I passed by it the other day. Why did the developers think that stretch of Howard Street was a good place to put an apartment building? Because it's so close to the 'L and the Dominicks? That wasn't enough of a good selling point.
I guess they're going to have to lower the cost of what they're asking for rent. Like North Coast said, I believe that's going to be a trend.
MCL, it's too bad that the rent subsidies are even there to tempt failing landlords. However, an acquaintance of mine saddled with some bad properties he can't keep rented, on the south and west sides, is turning to this and he says the number of vouchers available has been steeply reduced. A voucher tenant will be a Godsend for him because that will mean that the rents get paid no matter what, which has not been the case for him in the free market.
These vouchers skew rents northward, because they will much greater rent for a particular unit that it would command on the market. Why? Because the amount of rent a voucher recipient is given for rent is based on the area "average", which says nothing about a particular local market. For example, a mother of four is allowed up to $1400 a month for a 3 bed dwelling. The place only has to meet the minimum codes and pass the initial HUD inspection. It can be tiny, ugly, and charmless as long as it meets those codes, and it doesn't have to include utilities. Thus, Section 8 ends up degrading the entire rental market and driving up rents for everyone, because it sets a very low quality bar for very high rents. Worse, it is the last resort for landlords who can't keep a regular income stream going on their undesirable and/or overpriced properties any other way.
North Coast:
I am very much aware on how the various subsidy programs operate and work(Scattered Site Sec. 8, Project Based Section 8 and assorted subsidy programs run by various NFP's). Again, the issue NOH is the low-income/poverty CONCENTRATION which creates the negative quality of life issues and lack of viable retail development on Howard Street, which impacts everyone.
P.S. North Coast
When an area becomes so completely concentrated/saturated with subsidy rentals, a property owner will NOT be able to attract market rate(even moderate rate)tenants and therefore sees no choice but to go the subsidy 'route'. Thus, no resident economic base for the retail community to build on. It becomes a 'vicious cycle'!
wow $1400 a month - no wonder they turn to these vouchers. Have to agree with MCL - it's a vicious cycle. Some people live their entire life thinking the government is supposed to pay part of their rent. It's easy to walk by and see which buildings have section 8 housing.
So, what do you all think an apartment is worth?
What is a 3 bed, 2 bath 1600 SF apt in an owner occupied 3 flat, with all new windows, decks, kitchens, bathrooms, refinished wood floors, 5 quality ceiling fans, double landscaped lot, laundry in building, located on a residential side street, and more worth?
The rent was 875 12 years ago before all that new stuff (100K worth), and before taxes doubled, before heating costs doubled, before electric rates increased, before 12 years of inflation, etc.
There are some economic realities at play here folks-keep that in mind.
So what is a pretty decent unit worth?
I want the gov-ment to pay for my rent and my food stamps and my visits to the emergency room at the hospital and my cta pass....
Less concentration? Yeah, let's sprinkle the shit and piss on all of our lawns. That will make things better.
What is a "pretty decent" 3 bed unit, new, with all the gizmos, worth?
Whatever the market will pay, that's what it's worth and that's what any property is worth, whether to rent or to buy.
If your unit sits empty for months on end, you are asking too much.
If you have a waiting list, you could hike the price.
Let the market decide. And what the market's deciding to do is DEFLATE, despite the heroic efforts of the Fed and Treasury in conjunction with our top financial malefactors to re-inflate the housing and real estate markets and restart the fraudulent credit engine. Incomes are dropping at every level, jobs are being lost, and our leaders have laid a bill of $11 trillion on the taxpayers to prop this crap up, causing more job losses and generating more bad loans for a future wave of defaults.
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