AUBURN GRESHAM – A healthy living center on the South Side will soon open on 79th Street, bringing the basics of the neighborhood to the community, almost two years after winning a $ 10 million prize across the city.
The Healthy Lifestyle Hub, 839 W. 79th St., will open July 29, said Carlos Nelson, director of the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation.
The development corporation, which headed the hub, will celebrate the grand opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony, Nelson said. There is still time to decide.
The four-story Healthy Lifestyle Hub will be home to dozens of tenants, including Mikkey’s Retro Grill, Bank of America, UI Health, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Illinois and UIC Neighborhood Center. The Illinois Tunnel will train members of the Black and Brown community at the hub for jobs with the organization, Nelson said.
Interface Health Clinic and Urgent Care Center will be located on the entire second floor and part of the third floor. The clinic will provide medical, dental and mental health services. It is expected to serve more than 30,000 patients a year, Nelson said.
A high-tech kitchen and training center sponsored by the Chicago Bears will open on the first floor, giving local chefs, neighbors, and students a place to master healthy cooking. A café has already been built as a place for a local coffee shop. The hub will also provide free wifi throughout the building.
Nelson said the best of all was the 18-by-18-foot windows on the first floor. The oversized windows “bring light and light into 79th Street and Auburn Gresham, figuratively and literally,” Nelson said.
“We did not do this based on fear,” Nelson said. “We want floor-to-ceiling windows. We want windows all over the damn place. We want residents to know that this is a community just like Downtown, West Loop or any other growing community with a high quality of life. ”
The hub site, which opened in 1925, once housed the Rusnak Bros Furniture Storeroom and Showroom. The building had brick windows on almost every floor with ground floor retail, Nelson said.
In the 1970s, the building was turned into a dark public assistance office with no windows, Nelson said.
For years, the building was empty. But when the development corporation took over, they used “a lot of money and a lot of time” to renovate it and add something new, Nelson said.
They took “tough measures to preserve the terra cotta of this building” and made the center of the building to add an elevator, Nelson said. They also installed “windows out” on each floor, he said.
Critical funding and donations helped the development company recreate and preserve the nearly 100-year-old building, Nelson said.
In 2020, the Healthy Lifestyle Hub won the Pritzker Traubert Foundation’s $ 10 million Chicago prize. The hub also received $ 4 million from the city’s Invest South / West program.
The Bears donated more than $ 600,000 to power the high – tech kitchen, Nelson said. Companies such as Whirlpool and Kohler also donated appliances and fixtures to the bathrooms and offices.
The hub will change the situation for neighbors who have only seen a derelict building in their community, Nelson said.
“Nearly 30 graduate classes at Leo High School have passed over this empty brick building, and it has been the backdrop to their lives,” Nelson said. “For me, it was important for us to design this from a perspective that says, ‘Hey, kids, we live in a place that’s just like the West Loop.'”
The Healthy Hub is one of several projects of the Auburn Gresham Greater Development Corporation, Nelson said.
Of the $ 10 million donated by the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, approximately $ 5 million went to the Green Age Campus, a renewable energy development and urban farm at 650 W. 83rd St. appointed by Auburn Gresham group and nonprofit Urban Growers Collective and Green Era Partners. , Nelson said.
And $ 1 million will go towards converting the vacant, 300,000-square-foot Chalumet High School, 8131 S. May St., into “something that is in the public interest, and is owned by the community,” Nelson said.
The group will also seek to re-use vacant storage facades in the community.
In recent years, Grocery store Save A Lot, CVS, a branch of Bank of America and BJ’s Market & amp; Closed bakery. Recently, local Aldi closed unexpected, shocking neighbors.
The Healthy Lifestyle Hub will bring a pharmacy and bank back into the community. The corporation is working to “address the piece of food insecurity,” Nelson said.
And if it succeeds, empty stores like the CVS and Bank of America will become corporation – operated health and fitness campuses, Nelson said.
“If there was a local entity or owner who owned the community, we probably would not have left an empty 13,000 square foot building,” Nelson said. “We are really promoting community ownership. Building local wealth is at the forefront of our efforts. ”
Across the street from the hub, Auburn Gardens, a $ 40 million affordable housing development, comes to life. Down the street, a $ 35 million Metra station is set for 2024.
Soon, neighbors will have all their needs just steps from their homes. Auburn Gresham is moving, Nelson said.
“My goal is to build home ownership and wealth in the community, that we can show others that you can afford to buy one of the houses, one of the bungalows, and your first home in Auburn Gresham , ”Said Nelson.
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