Editorial: Can Chicago State University build a vibrant community a la University of Chicago in Hyde Park?

Chicago Tribune

17 hours ago

Chicago is blessed with a bounty of colleges and universities within its borders. Most of them, from the University of Chicago in Hyde Park on the South Side to Loyola University in Rogers Park on the North Side, act as economic drivers for their neighborhoods.
They spawn housing, restaurants and retail that serve employees and students at the institutions, as well as the fortunate residents of those 'cities within a city.'
One of the few exceptions to this rule is Chicago State University in the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago's Far South Side. The public university, which has served primarily Black students for more than 50 years, sits on a gorgeous, 161-acre campus, clustered with copses of stately trees that make the grounds look something like an East Coast institution with a far longer lineage than CSU.
But one look at 95th Street, the Chicago arterial that borders CSU to the north, lets you know you're not in Princeton, New Jersey, or Charlottesville, Virginia.
From Cottage Grove Avenue west to Halsted Street, 95th is dominated by modest single-family homes, mainly small churches, a few fast-food spots and a massive storage building. (A multistory U-Haul facility occupies an entire block.) Just east of Cottage Grove is yet another sprawling storage facility.
These are not the sorts of uses that create foot traffic, which understandably is scant.
That's not to say the neighborhood is blighted. Far from it. Residential communities just to the north of the school feature well-kept brick bungalows with immaculate lawns — all the hallmarks of a classic working-class Chicago neighborhood.
For many, it's surely a pleasant place to live. There just aren't places to gather, nor shops to speak of, within walking or biking distance. Residents have to leave the neighborhood for those amenities.
CSU President Zaldwaynaka 'Z' Scott has ambitious plans to create the sort of community — with coffee shops, bookstores, apartments and eateries — that most other universities and colleges inspire, support and take for granted. The university, partnering with real estate outfit CBRE, has issued a request for proposals to develop buildings with 528 student units and 25,000 square feet of attached retail on land that currently is the site of a bus turnaround and expansive lawns near the entrance to CSU's main parking lot.
The timetable to complete that part of Scott's vision is 2027. But it's supposed to be just the first of four phases.
Like we said, the plans are ambitious.
Nothing wrong with that. This is Chicago, after all, where Daniel Burnham's 'make no little plans' philosophy is invoked routinely.
And we are rooting for success here. The part of the South Side that's home to CSU is underpopulated and underdeveloped. Like many other neighborhoods in Chicago's geographically largest area, Roseland and the 95th Street corridor cry out for creative development ideas and investment.
It helps that other unrelated improvements to the area are in the offing. The 95th Street Metra Electric station within an easy walk of CSU is getting a desperately needed upgrade, which should draw more commuters out of their cars and onto the street once there are places to visit other than the school.
A few blocks west of CSU, we have serious misgivings about the ballooning cost of the much-delayed Red Line extension south from the 95th Street station that currently is the terminus of that line. But as long as that CTA expansion remains in the works, a more densely populated, economically vibrant college community along 95th Street could help make that multibillion-dollar investment begin to pay off with more ridership — and perhaps catalyze more transit-oriented residential development around the Red Line station there.
These are lovely dreams, but realism is important to keep in mind here as well. Taking the baby steps in Scott's first phase of what she's calling 'University Village 95' is necessary before any giant leaps happen.
CSU currently is mainly a commuter school, which explains in part why 95th Street looks nothing like 53rd Street in Hyde Park, 5 miles to the north. Scott says there's pent-up demand from CSU students to live on or near campus, and that's what will fuel the first phase of this project. If those projections are overblown, this effort won't go far.
In addition, like many colleges and universities around the country, CSU, with 2,300 students, is struggling to keep enrollment up. We know little about how Scott thinks the first phase will be financed other than that it will have to be done with private funds and not money that CSU frankly doesn't have for any kind of development of this sort.
That's a stark difference from the well-endowed University of Chicago, which fronted much of the cash to transform 53rd Street from the tired retail strip it was not long ago to the vibrant corridor it is today: 53rd Street now serves as a destination for young and old from all parts of the South Side, a boon both to Hyde Park and to the university. Loyola has done much the same in its North Side neighborhood.
Still, 95th Street holds plenty of promise. If the CSU initiative can get a little momentum, who knows what can be achieved?