About this Event
Join Illinois Green Alliance for the first of our Road to Zero: Summit Tour Series with a deeper dive into the Fifty City Commons project, which we featured as a case study at last year’s Getting to Zero Summit.
Fifth City Commons is a new-construction affordable housing development in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side that will include 43 apartments built to Passive House standards. Over four years in the making, it was part of the C40 Reinventing Competition for Cities that encouraged cities across the globe to offer vacant land for sustainable and net-zero development.
Don’t miss the opportunity to explore this project before construction finishes in November 2024. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the innovative energy and water efficiency strategies that have been utilized throughout the building with the design and construction team. See below for more details on the building and the project team.
More About the Building
The first of the two project phases will comprise a three-story building that will be Passive House-certified and include 43 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, two community rooms, a resident terrace and fitness room, three laundry rooms and on-site management offices. The property also will have robust onsite stormwater retention and mature landscaping, EV charging stations, extensive bike parking, and on-site composting as part of its green goals. The building will serve families with incomes from 30% AMI (area median income) to 80% AMI. Over two-thirds of the building’s electric load will be offset by rooftop solar panels, and residents’ meters will be further offset by off-site community solar. A second phase is in planning and will include approximately 30 units for affordable shared ownership.
The City of Chicago provided the bulk of the financing for the development in the form of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and HOME investment Partnership Program (HOME) assistance, sales tax bonds, 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and tax-exempt bonds. The LIHTC and renewable energy credit syndicator is Enterprise Community Investments. The construction lender is BMO Harris. Other financing will be provided by ComEd, SPARCC (Strong, Prosperous and Resilient Communities Challenge) and Illinois Solar for All.
Project Team:
- Perkins + Will
- Nia Architects
- POAH (Preservation of Affordable Housing)
- Skender Construction
- dbHMS
- Terra Engineering
- RME
- Omni Ecosystems
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Fifth City Commons Building, 3155 West 5th Avenue, Chicago, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 10.00