19-Mar-19 – A new 482-unit mixed-income residential complex – including a 21-story high-rise – will be built on the former site of a high school that once served the Cabrini-Green public housing complex on the Near North Side.

The development includes the new high-rise, another eight-story building, and two clusters of townhomes, according to a zoning application submitted to the Chicago City Council on March 13. If approved, it would be a mix of rental and for-sale units, built on land owned by Chicago Housing Authority.

The site near the corner of Larrabee Street & Clybourn Avenue is the vacant former home of Near North Career Metropolitan High School, which closed in 2001. CHA was at one time going to turn the site into a park in exchange for the loss of the Oscar Mayer baseball fields, used by Little League teams, and a park that were demolished for a new shopping center.

Texas-based Hunt Companies was selected by CHA to take the lead on redeveloping the 6.3-acre property. Chicago-based Imagine Group was selected as a co-developer.

A Cabrini-Green resident group is a minority partner in the development. Its participation was mandated under a 2000 federal consent decree that required the construction of 700 public housing units in the area. Nearly half of the units would be market-rate, about 15 percent would be rented at affordable rates, and almost 40 percent would be made available to residents on CHA waiting lists.

Cabrini-Green Homes once housed up to 15,000 residents. It was demolished between 1995 and 2011.