market rate housing

The Cloud Apartments

400 East 41 st., Chicago, Illinois

The latest addition to the Paul G. Stewart campus will be the Cloud Apartments providing 53 new affordable family housing apartments.  Bordering the north end of the 12 acre site is the existing, raised railroad embankment for the abandoned Kenwood commuter line, a railroad originally developed as an east/west transfer line between the Illinois Central to the east and the Union Stockyards to the west.  Instead of having the owner incur the cost of demolishing the massive concrete retaining walls and huge amount of soil, a unique decision was made to build against and on top of the embankment.  The 650 foot long, 4 story building will be built of precast concrete for ease and rapidity of construction on an existing, occupied site.  The exterior design and materials reflect the existing family housing, Bronzeville Family Phase II, completed in 2014, across the inner ring road to the south.  The first floor, against the south face of the embankment, will provide covered parking and 4 entry/exit stair cores, two of which provide elevators and two provide trash chute and garbage collection.  The second floor, again against the south face of the embankment, will provide apartments along a single loaded corridor.  Finally the 3rd and 4th floors rise above and over the height of the embankment, providing apartments in a double loaded corridor configuration, with the stair/elevator cores on the south and three 'light' courts interrupting the north elevation providing natural light and access to the top of the embankment where a garden path meanders along the north half of the embankment.  The remaining un-built west portion of the embankment will contain a secured, walled-in playground.

Client:  Paul G. Stewart Center

Team:  Linn-Mathes Inc., General Contractor; Perry & Associates, SE; Lehman Design Consultants, M/E/P; Gloger Engineers Limited, CE

Scope:  1 four story building, 53 apartments, 86,000 gross square feet