Sterling Bay along with Skender will partner to build an 83 unit apartment building and 10 three-flats at 1100 West Grand Avenue on Chicago's West Side. All will be affordable housing units, using their modular construction approach per RE Journals. Construction should begin early next year on the 7 story apartment building and completion is expected by the end of 2020.
The three-flats will include two-bedroom/one bathroom apartments with rents that will be capped at 60 percent of the city's area median income which is about $41,000 for a two-person household or $51,000 for a family of four. Skender's company's Little Village manufacturing center is set to open this week and once it is running at its peak next year, Sterling Bay plans to align with non-profit property managers to build affordable housing on over 100 vacant lots throughout the city of Chicago.
"We believe all Chicagoans should have the opportunity to live in well-designed homes that are affordable and enhance the surrounding neighborhood. Skender has thoughtfully addressed how to deliver affordable housing in a way that is effective and scalable and can make a real difference across the city."
CEO of Sterling Bay | Andy Gloor
Modular construction is a building process that takes place in a controlled environment where the design, building and technology processes are all standardized. This cuts down on delays that are weather related as the factory is climate controlled. The space will be able to finish a building module in just five days. Skender has been busy building the 130,000 square foot manufacturing facility at 3348 S. Pulaski Avenue.
Skender is planning to turn out a new three-flat every two months and the first 3,750 square foot three-flat should be completed by the end of August in the city's Humboldt Park neighborhood at 640 N. Ridgeway Avenue. The steel frame three-flats will be completed and ready for occupancy on a nine-week production schedule and each successive batch will get cheaper to produce. This is 80 percent faster than the conventional construction method and at a lower cost.
According to The Real Deal, this new modular construction practice could pave the way for large scale construction that will take less than a year from groundbreaking to ribbon-cutting.
Skender is also working on an agreement with the city's buildings department to self-certify successive building permits once each new model is approved which will cut months off of the waiting time.
The Grand Avenue apartment building will be replacing an auto dealer on the site where broker-developer Sean Conlon received a zoning approval to build a seven story apartment building in 2009. That project never got off the ground but the decade old city approval means that Sterling Bay will not need to apply for a zoning change.
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A study last year found that the city lost more than 20,000 apartments in small buildings between the years 2010 and 2016. Most of these two to four unit buildings get demolished and become single family dwellings. This in turn has brought a decline in the number of affordable rentals across the city.
Per RE Journals, a recent report by DePaul University's Institute for Housing Studies shows that Chicago is still suffering from not enough affordable housing options. Low-income residents are fleeing the city and the affordability gap has yet to reach pre-recession levels.
