ROSELAND — More homes and spots for businesses and shopping could be coming to Roseland as the city looks to redevelop three large sites in the neighborhood.
The city’s Department of Planning and Development has issued a request to developers, telling them the agency wants to hear their proposals for how the spots could be redeveloped. They are the closed Gately’s Peoples Store, the former Roseland Theatre building and the site of the proposed Michigan Red Line station, a station that would be built as part of the suggested Red Line expansion.
The city is accepting requests for proposals for the site this fall, officials announced this week.
The projects would have to build on recent investments in the Roseland and Pullman areas and create more residential options, Michael Penicnak, a project coordinator for the development department, said at a Tuesday meeting of the Community Development Commission.
The Far South Side neighborhoods have long faced disinvestment, with their once booming commercial corridors now struggling.
The Department of Planning and Development wants to see a mixed-use building along Michigan Avenue and single-family homes along Edbrooke Avenue at the site of the Gately’s Peoples Store, Penicnak said at the meeting. The business was once a popular department store, but it was demolished in 2019 after a fire.
The Community Development Commission also approved a request for acquisition for properties at 11331 S. Michigan Ave., allowing the city to try to buy the property, the home of the now closed Roseland Theatre.
The city’s development agency wants the theater’s building to be restored so it can potentially be reused in a variety of ways: for businesses and shops, as a shared kitchen and for food production, for cultural uses, as an office and incubator space, or something else, Penicnak said. Officials would also want nearby vacant land to be used, he said.
And officials would want a developer to dream up a mixed-use building with large retail space for the site of the possible Michigan Red Line station, Penicnak said.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) said he wrote a letter of support for those plans in exchange for development Commissioner Maurice Cox supporting a 100-room hotel in his ward.
Credit: Chicago Department of Planning and Development
A digital mockup shows what a possible redevelopment on Michigan Avenue in Roseland could look like.
Credit: Chicago Department of Planning and Development
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