“L”-evating Chicago Neighborhoods Through Equitable Transit-Oriented Development February 26, 2025

What if Chicago worked better for all residents? What if walking, biking and public transit were safe, accessible options in every neighborhood? And what if everything Chicagoans need, including frequent, affordable transit, was within a 10-minute walk from home?

These are the questions being asked and answered by Elevated Chicago, a multi-sector collaborative launched in 2017 to promote equitable transit-oriented development (ETOD) in the City of Chicago. Building on the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD)—which seeks to concentrate housing, jobs, and services near public transportation stations and stops to create livable and sustainable neighborhoods in which residents are connected to a wide range of amenities that improve their quality of life—ETOD explicitly centers equity in the development process to ensure that local residents have a voice in the direction of their neighborhoods and benefit from new community assets without being displaced as property values and the cost of living increase.

“ETOD places a greater emphasis on ensuring that the transit-oriented developments that get built in Chicago are community-driven, meet the needs of community residents, and advance equitable outcomes in housing, public health, and food access, among other areas,” explains Elevated Chicago Executive Director Juan Sebastian Arias. “ETOD also helps increase access to jobs by increasing the number of businesses accessible via public transit, reduces the cost of living for residents by making it easier and faster to get around without a car, and creates a healthier environment by encouraging a greener mode of transportation.”

Supporting the Evolution of ETOD in Chicago

Since its launch, IFF has worked closely with Elevated Chicago to facilitate ETOD that chips away at longstanding disinvestment in communities of color on Chicago’s south and west sides by providing wide ranging support that leverages deep expertise in real estate, construction, and finance to facilitate equitable community development (see sidebar for details).

The results of these efforts, and Elevated Chicago’s work as a whole, have been impactful and far-reaching. Despite the City of Chicago first incentivizing transit-oriented development in 2013, more than 90 percent of projects in the following six years were concentrated in affluent areas of the city—including the North Side, downtown, and the West Loop neighborhood—contributing to cultural and resident displacement. By prioritizing equity as part of transit-oriented development, a far more diverse collection of neighborhoods is now benefiting from dense, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented development near transit hubs. To date, Elevated Chicago has helped to facilitate more than 50 ETOD projects in 25 Chicago neighborhoods, with many enabled by city policy changes co-developed and advocated for by the organization and its partners.

This includes an ETOD Policy Plan implemented in 2020 that built upon the city’s earlier TOD initiatives while centering equity as a guiding framework, which was developed through an intensive 18-month outreach process with more than 70 neighborhood, citywide, and regional stakeholders, as well as multiple city departments and sister agencies. Another signature achievement of Elevated Chicago’s policy work was the Connected Communities Ordinance. Passed in 2022, the ordinance codified many recommendations from the ETOD Policy Plan by expanding existing TOD incentives more equitably across the city.

“The policy changes that Elevated Chicago has helped to facilitate with partners across the city have been crucial to scaling up ETOD projects in Chicago’s neighborhoods,” says Vickie Lakes-Battle, IFF’s executive director for the Chicago Metro Region. “The basic framework is now in place to realize the potential of ETOD, and that’s going to meaningfully improve the quality of life for residents living in communities on the city’s south and west sides.”

Accelerating ETOD with Elevated Works

By creating a more conducive environment for ETOD in all of Chicago’s neighborhoods, more projects like The Habitat Company and P3 Markets’ 43 Green development will be possible. Located in Chicago’s historic Bronzeville neighborhood, and adjacent to the Chicago Transit Authority’s 43^rd Street Green Line train station, the three-phased, $100 million 43 Green development includes new retail and commercial space, along with 300 housing units—half of which will be affordable to residents earning up to 60 percent of the Area Median Income. Facilitated in part by a $1.179 million predevelopment loan from IFF that enabled the developers to acquire land and cover project costs before beginning construction, 43 Green is designed to connect residents to downtown Chicago via a 20-minute train ride.

To accelerate the development of additional ETOD projects like 43 Green, Elevated Chicago in 2023 formed the Elevated Works technical assistance program. Through the program, emerging developers committed to projects in communities that have experienced disinvestment receive coaching and support on predevelopment activities from 17 technical assistance providers. This can include support for tasks like community engagement, design, zoning, market analysis, communications, and other project essentials. IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team is one of five core planning partners for the program alongside Elevated Chicago, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Metropolitan Planning Council, and Rudd Resources.

Facilitated by grant funding from the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development and several private foundations, Elevated Works has supported 29 ETOD projects since its inception—providing developers who choose to participate in the program with technical assistance customized to their specific needs. This is crucial, as the success of each project hinges on a personalized approach that takes into account the type of development and program, zoning rules, nearness to transit, community needs, and level of gentrification, displacement, or disinvestment in the surrounding area.

As one of the core planning partners for Elevated Works, IFF is responsible for managing the pipeline of projects that are associated with the initiative, helping to match developers with the coaching and technical assistance to overcome barriers to the completion of their projects. IFF also helps to identify and aggregate project-specific capital needs for each developer, facilitates peer-to-peer learning by introducing developers to similar projects and providing relevant case studies, and identifies common systemic and process challenges faced by developers of ETOD projects. With these learnings, Elevated Chicago is able to advocate for policy changes to further reduce barriers to ETOD in Chicago.

“By managing the pipeline of projects participating in Elevated Works, we’re able to pool resources and apply learnings from one project to the next, which supports systems change in a way that wouldn’t be possible by working with one developer at a time,” says Kate Ansorge, IFF’s managing director of Real Estate Solutions in Chicago. “Paired with policy advocacy that’s informed by the challenges developers have faced, this pipeline approach is creating an enabling environment that reduces barriers to ETOD in Chicago moving forward.”

ETOD in Action: Duo Development’s Starling

 

Among the projects that best exemplify the value of Elevated Works is Starling, a 2,500-square-foot café and multipurpose community space on the Chicago Transit Authority’s #18 bus line built by Duo Development (Duo). Envisioned by Duo founders Carlos Robles-Shanahan and Rafael Robles, along with their sister, Karla Robles, as a “third place” where North Lawndale residents can connect with one another outside of their homes and away from work, Starling includes a library nook, an open workshop area, a fully equipped sound studio, a small meeting room, three outdoor terraces, and a garden. And while the building is open to the public because of the café, individual spaces in the facility can be rented by the hour by community groups, local organizations, and small businesses.

“The genesis of Starling was being on the ground in the community through some of our previous work supporting the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council with the development of a Quality of Life plan and hearing from residents that they really just wanted a place to exist, with no strings attached and no expectation that they’d be participating in some kind of social service programming while they were there,” says Robles-Shanahan. “An opportunity came along to purchase a lot, and we decided to put our money where our mouths are and create that type of community space in the neighborhood.”

Continuing to refine their idea through an intensive community engagement process, building relationships with neighbors, and shaping the project based on input received, Duo set out to build the first new, commercial-only building on North Lawndale’s 16^th Street corridor in roughly 70 years. In support of Duo’s vision, the Starling project was awarded grants by Elevated Chicago, The Chicago Community Trust, We Rise Together, and the City of Chicago’s ETOD program and Neighborhood Opportunity Fund, helping to build the capital stack for the $1.9 million project. In addition to the firm’s own equity, Duo leveraged a $631,000 loan from IFF to break ground on the project last April.

Through Duo’s participation in the Elevated Works program, the Robles/Robles-Shanahan siblings leveraged technical assistance from IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team, which served as the owner’s representative for the project. While Duo had previous development experience, having a trusted partner to collaborate with during the construction process served as validation for decision-making and alleviated some of the administrative burden of dealing with payments to vendors and navigating sometimes byzantine requirements associated with grant funding.

“There’s a large amount of stress as a developer trying to put together a capital stack for a project, and we dealt with a lot of uncertainty about when grant funding we’d been awarded for Starling would be disbursed,” says Robles. “At one point, it looked like $250,000 in grant funding was going to be pulled entirely, which is a significant issue for a project like ours. Being able to lean on IFF to help navigate that by leveraging their relationships in city government to get clarity about the status of the funds was really helpful. It comes down to having someone you can trust and rely on to help alleviate the stress and validate the decisions being made as projects move forward.”

Though still awaiting some of the grant funds awarded to the Starling project, Duo was able to quickly complete construction and celebrated the grand opening of the community facility last September. As Duo sprinted toward the finish line of construction, they once again tapped into the technical assistance provided through Elevated Works—this time working with Rudd Resources to plan and execute a ribbon cutting ceremony that welcomed community members into the newly completed building for the first time. Since opening, Starling has hosted numerous community members, organizations, and local businesses for events and gatherings, affirming the value of having a high-quality space in North Lawndale that can flex to meet a wide range of community needs.

With the initial success of the project, Duo is now finalizing plans to ensure that Starling provides additional value to the community by rolling out a profit-sharing model that will compensate the top local users of the building to put money directly into the hands of North Lawndale residents. Based on their experience, Robles and Robles-Shanahan are also launching a new venture— In.Field—to help other developers and community organizations facilitate the kind of deep community engagement that helped bring Starling to fruition. Structured as an interactive kit, In.Field is designed to amplify community power and foster deeper participation in decision-making processes in pursuit of stronger, more vibrant communities.

“What we took away from this project and the additional support through Elevated Works were process learnings, and we’ll be able to ask a lot better questions when we do another building,” says Robles. “In the meantime, we’re excited to help other developers engage communities to figure out what’s actually needed in neighborhoods and how to make their projects a reality in partnership with residents.”

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