* 9/1/25 - Crains - New hotel, grocery store pitched for Pullman + 6/30/25 - Pullman developer touts impact amid uneasy times for low-income community funding + 6/12/25 - Crains - A look at the progress in Pullman, and how it can offer lessons for nearby neighborhoods
Buzz Sawyer
New hotel, grocery store pitched for Pullman
One year after the Pullman National Monument debuted as a hopeful tourist attraction, two developers have lined up plans to add a hotel for visitors and a grocery store for residents in the burgeoning area.
In one of two projects proposed in and around the Far South Side neighborhood, a venture led by Chicago investor Andre Garner is seeking a city grant to help develop a 101-room Hampton by Hilton hotel at 111th Street and Doty Avenue, a few blocks east of the clock tower building that has been restored as a visitor center for the historic site. In the other, Cleveland-based grocery operator Yellow Banana has applied for the same grant to help it develop a Save A Lot supermarket immediately south of Pullman at 130th Street and Eberhart Avenue.
Both developers have applied for $5 million in assistance through the Chicago Recovery Plan development grant program, according to a joint statement they issued with Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th. The grants are partially funded by local recovery money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act passed last year.
The plans could add to a series of developments in and near Pullman along Interstate 94, where the 180-acre former Ryerson Steel plant site has been transformed in recent years into a mixed-use campus, dubbed Pullman Park. The historic-but-disinvested property now includes a Method Soap factory that opened in 2015, a pair of greenhouses from produce grower Gotham Greens, a Whole Foods distribution center and an Amazon delivery center, among other new developments.
The $20 million hotel project from Garner's Pullman Hotel Group would be built on a vacant lot just north of a retail building that now houses a Culver's restaurant along 111th Street.
The hotel would be meant to meet demand from visitors to the historic Pullman monument as well as the neighborhood's other new demand drivers, said Garner, such as the events held at the Pullman Community Center that opened in 2018. Backers of the restored Pullman National Monument said last year they expected visitation to the area to jump by four or five times to as many as 300,000 people per year with the help of being affiliated with the National Park Service.
"You've got a nice mix of factors that pointed toward the need for some lodging," said Garner, an Englewood native and longtime communications consultant. He previously worked in city government with David Doig of Pullman Park master developer Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, who brought up the prospect of Garner developing a hotel on the property.
"There are three major highways running through the South Side and bringing in people from all around the nation, and no place for folks to stay (with a brand) that they'd recognize," Garner said.
Yet financing the project will be a challenge. Garner said he has commitments from other equity, debt and philanthropic sources and received $100,000 from the Chicago Community Trust to help cover pre-development costs, but he is counting on the city grant to help make the project a reality.
"We'd have to look at other ways to get some help" if the grant is not awarded, Garner said. He expects the city to announce grant winners in November.
Farther south, the $5 million grant would help Yellow Banana acquire a property at 130th and Eberhart in Altgeld Gardens, where it would build a 10,000-square-foot Save A Lot location. The store would add to the six Save A Lot locations Yellow Banana is upgrading in underserved Chicago neighborhoods on the city's South and West sides with the help of a separate $13.5 million Chicago Recovery Plan grant.
The Altgeld Gardens Save A Lot location would help eliminate a food desert for tens of thousands of people that live nearby and "have for far too long lacked access to healthy, affordable food," Yellow Banana co-founder Michael Nance said in the statement.
Both projects have strong backing from Beale, who called the projects "much-needed additions to the Far South Side," the statement said.
He added: "We know from experience that development that brings needed amenities and jobs to our communities is good for everyone and all parts of the city."
Danny Ecker is a reporter covering commercial real estate for Crain's Chicago Business,
with a focus on offices, hotels and megaprojects shaping the local property sector. He joined Crain’s in 2010 and previously covered the business of sports, as well as the city's convention and tourism sector.
Pullman developer touts impact amid uneasy times for low-income community funding
The developer behind Pullman's revival over the past 15 years has armed itself with data on the historic Far South Side community's transformation, highlighting its impact as the Trump administration tinkers with some of its most important funding programs.
Nonprofit developer Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives this week unveiled the results of a study it commissioned to measure its influence on blighted parts of the city's South Side, holding up what it frames as a shining example of the possibilities for the city's disinvested areas. CNI since 2010 has spearheaded development of manufacturing, industrial, retail, restaurant and other properties on and near a 180-acre former Ryerson Steel facility site it rebranded as Pullman Park.
The chief findings by East Lansing, Mich.-based Anderson Economic Group: Residents in Pullman and its environs have gotten wealthier, more educated and more employed since CNI began its redevelopment work there. (Read the full report below.)
AEG analyzed data from the developer's projects and the U.S. Census Bureau between 2010 and 2023 to conclude that CNI is responsible for nearly $1.5 billion in economic impact and 7,800 new jobs created during that span across the Pullman, West Pullman, Roseland and Riverdale neighborhoods.
Pullman's unemployment rate dropped to about 13% from 21% during that span, the study showed. Median household income in the neighborhood rose by 48%, including at a faster rate than that of the entire city of Chicago from 2019 through 2023, AEG found.
The numbers add analytical heft to Pullman's turnaround, a nationally recognized case study in revamping a community whose vitality vaporized with the loss of an old-line industry. High-profile projects like Whole Foods and Amazon distribution centers and an SC Johnson warehouse in Pullman Park have stood as symbols of corporate buy-in to a Far South Side area plagued by poverty, population loss and real and perceived issues with crime.
But telling that story in terms of new dollars spent and jobs created has become even more crucial in 2025, said CNI President David Doig, whose firm commissioned the AEG study in December. Amid troubling threats to federal programs that fuel economic development in low-income communities, CNI and its peers must prove their worth.
"We have to continue to fight to get investment, to get people to believe in what we're doing," Doig said. "It takes these kinds of things to wake people up a little bit."
Doig had reason to worry on Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order to eliminate federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The edict included the elimination of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, a 31-year-old program that provides federal tax credits and other incentives to help developers finance projects in communities like Pullman. CNI alone has leveraged more than $75 million from CDFI's New Markets Tax Credits program for projects in Pullman, Doig said.
The CDFI Fund was initially spared from the chopping block after industry lobbyists alerted a bipartisan group of senators, only to have its potential elimination resurface in another executive order in March before that piece of the measure was again removed.
Blowing up the program "would have basically killed the whole CDFI industry," Doig told Crain's earlier this year.
More recent news for groups like CNI has been better: Under the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law earlier this month, New Markets Tax Credits was permanently extended with a $5 billion annual allocation, a change from being subject each year to congressional appropriation that should help prospective investors get comfortable with the program.
The law also extended the life of the federal opportunity zone program, which was due to expire at the end of next year. The incentive allows investors to defer or avoid taxes on capital gains if they redirect those profits into designated zones in poor communities nationwide.
"Now we need to validate this" with those legislative boosts, Doig said. "The fight is not over. They could turn around and say, 'We want to change this, we don't want that program anymore.' We have to constantly be justifying and validating this work. To the extent that this (economic impact study) provides some of those policymakers and lawmakers that justification — that's a critical part of having this data."
Among other nuggets highlighted in the study, AEG found the number of Pullman residents with a college degree increased by 87% between 2010 and 2023, outpacing the 46% city average. Median home values in the neighborhood during that span rose by 27% in Pullman, according to the study. That was a bigger jump than the 17% Chicago increase, though the change trailed the city figure based on actual dollar amount.
AEG also reported Pullman's population decreased by almost 13% during the 13-year stretch while the city of Chicago stayed relatively flat. But the study noted almost all of that drop-off came between 2010 and 2019, and has been steady since.
"Through the implementation of a place- and asset-based comprehensive economic development strategy, CNI has been instrumental in revitalizing Chicago’s distressed communities, particularly Pullman," AEG wrote in the study.
Doig, who served in Chicago's housing and planning departments under former Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Chicago Park District before launching CNI, said Pullman should be a model for "deep, long-term, place-based investment" in other Chicago neighborhoods. Though he acknowledges Pullman has had advantages over other disinvested locations, including highway proximity, large tracts of land ripe for redevelopment and the history that merited the creation of a national historic park drawing visitors to the area.
He also stressed the importance of stable political leadership in the 9th Ward, where Ald. Anthony Beale has represented the community since 1999.
"What (CNI is) doing is important, impactful and, best of all, replicable," Beale said in a statement.
CNI has targeted its next Pullman project at the Hotel Florence, a shuttered inn owned by the state of Illinois across the street from the Pullman National Historic Park. The state passed legislation in 2023 allocating more than $20 million for its restoration and issued a request for proposals earlier this year.
CNI submitted a bid to restore and repurpose the hotel with 60 rooms, a restaurant and event space, providing "a huge opportunity for people coming to visit the national park," Doig said.
Reflecting on Pullman's evolution over the past decade and a half, Doig said one of the most noticeable differences is the nature of community meetings, where residents now consistently ask: "What's next?"
"It's a different vibe now," Doig said. "We've raised the bar. People expect more now and they want more. That's a good problem to have."
Pullman Economic Impact Study by dannyecker_crain on Scribd
A look at the progress in Pullman, and how it can offer lessons for nearby neighborhoods
Kip Brown, a longtime resident of Chicago's Roseland neighborhood, looks at the development boom in nearby Pullman and hopes that investment will start flowing west across Cottage Grove Avenue to revitalize battered South Michigan Avenue and the surrounding Far South Side community.
"People say, 'Look at all that's going on over there,' " says the retired IRS budget analyst. "Why can't we have some of that over here?"
The Far South Side, like other parts of the city's South and West sides, has suffered decades of neglect following the collapse of heavy industry that supplied thousands of jobs. The area lost 60,000 people over the past 30 years, U.S. Census data shows, as residents fled to the suburbs or out of state.
Yet the historic Pullman area has benefited from a decadelong surge in investment that brought a Walmart, a Whole Foods distribution center, a soap producer and a greenhouse to an industrial park off the Bishop Ford Expressway at 111th Street. Investor Andre Garner is planning a 101-room Hampton by Hilton hotel at the south end of the site that anticipates demand by visitors participating in sports tournaments at the Pullman Community Center.
The renaissance stemmed the community's population decline, created nearly 2,000 jobs, helped boost home prices and reduced the number of people living in poverty, according to nonprofit developer Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, or CNI, which quarterbacked the Pullman revival.
Can the economic development approach used in Pullman be replicated to revitalize Roseland and other economically depressed South and West side communities? There are similar principles that can be applied, says CNI President David Doig.
This includes launching projects at a large scale to make a difference, generating buy-in from community residents and demonstrating continued progress to convert skeptics. Pullman enjoyed consistent leadership under Doig, 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale and top brass at U.S. Bank. From his years in city government, Doig is skilled in the tools of economic development, including tax credits, tax increment financing and other city revenue sources that can be applied across neighborhoods.
But Pullman had one exceptional advantage that set it apart from surrounding neighborhoods. It had investment from U.S. Bank valued at more than $100 million, including 180 acres of undeveloped land, tax credits and charitable contributions, which yielded $400 million in developments.
"You won't be able to replicate what we did in Pullman because we had the land," Beale says. "That was a unique situation we were able to capitalize on."
Development in Roseland and other communities involves raising capital from scratch and assembling land, one parcel at a time.
Another difference: Pullman didn't have to compete with other South and West side communities for resources, says Abraham Lacy, president of the Far South Community Development Corp. Black and Brown developers working on the South and West sides "scavenge for dollars and attention."
While large tracts of undeveloped land are hard to come by, communities can begin redevelopment by identifying and capitalizing on their assets, Doig says. In Pullman, the strategy was focused on economic development, adding jobs and retail, he says. Roseland's strengths include the planned extension of the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line, a fledgling medical district and a commercial corridor ripe for a turnaround — the strategy is to build homes, adding the population density that should attract retailers and other amenities.
A DECADE OF DEVELOPMENT
Pullman is notable as the 19th-century industrial planned community that manufactured the luxury Pullman Palace railroad cars. Founder George Pullman built brick rowhouses for his workers and provided access to schools and parks, although not everyone was fond of the paternalistic approach. Workers protesting wage cuts in an 1894 strike drew national sympathy, and the company was later ordered by a court to divest its residential property.
The company phased out its sleeping cars in the late 1960s but continued to manufacture other railcars into the 1980s amid numerous corporate divestitures, acquisitions and reorganizations.
Nearby Roseland thrived during the manufacturing heyday and was a shopping mecca. Gatelys Peoples Store for a time held the title of the biggest store on Michigan Avenue. "Gatelys was the place to go — like Marshall Field's. It was on that level," Roseland resident Brown recalls.
But the end of manufacturing at the company George Pullman built and the closing of area steel and automotive plants was devastating. Families left for better opportunities or struggled to find jobs. In 2000, 28% of Pullman's shrinking population lived below the poverty line.
"This neighborhood was hit hard by predatory lending," says Andrea Reed, executive director of the Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce. "A lot of people lost their homes."
When Reed started her position in 2009, she researched where South Michigan Avenue shop owners were living and found they commuted from affluent suburbs such as South Barrington and Winnetka. Yet they allowed their buildings to fall into disrepair and tolerated drug dealers on the street.
Just as Reed was starting her new job during the global financial crisis, U.S. Bank was figuring out what to do with a 180-acre brownfield site at 111th Street off the Bishop Ford Expressway in Pullman that it inherited through an acquisition. It resolved to continue the redevelopment work started by a Pullman-based unit of the bank it acquired, First Bank of Oak Park, which had collapsed during the crisis. That unit was reborn as CNI.
Over the next decade, CNI led a series of development deals at the site, starting with a 149,000-square-foot Walmart that opened in 2013. Then came Method, a producer of green personal and household cleaning products that teamed with New York-based Gotham Greens for a hydroponic roof farm. SC Johnson opened its own warehouse after it acquired Method in 2017. A Whole Foods distribution facility, the Pullman Community Center and a second Gotham Greens greenhouse fill out the site.
CNI teamed with a Minneapolis developer to build a fulfillment center for Amazon at 105th Street and South Woodlawn Avenue, which was sold to an investor in 2021 for $65 million, or more than $450 per square foot — considered at the time the highest price paid for a Chicago-area industrial building of more than 100,000 square feet. Nearby Culver's and Potbelly restaurants draw in workers from the plants at lunchtime.
The developments may have added jobs, but big-box stores and large industrial facilities don't necessarily revitalize a neighborhood, says Stacey Sutton, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago's Department of Urban Planning & Policy. Indeed, the complex off the Bishop Ford Expressway functions as an industrial park rather than a residential neighborhood.
Further west, Pullman hopes its residential neighborhood south of 111th Street will benefit from its designation late last year as Pullman National Historical Park, an upgrade from its earlier national monument status. The state-owned Hotel Florence at 111th Place and South St. Lawrence Avenue is in line for a restoration. The Pullman Artspace Lofts, a renovation of two historic buildings developed by CNI and two other nonprofits, opened two years ago on Langley Avenue north of 112th Street and was the first residential development in 60 years.
"Momentum is building," says Michael Davidson, senior director of community impact at The Chicago Community Trust, which has helped fund the Historic Pullman Foundation. "With the national park (status), there's a promise of walkability, especially around the historic Market Square.
While Pullman is still a work in progress, there's no doubt that the community has benefited. The number of people living in poverty was cut by nearly one-third between 2010 and 2020, according to CNI. The number of vacant housing units was reduced by nearly 35% between 2016 and 2020. And the median sale price of all types of homes has risen by 50% since 2020, CNI says.
'YOU CAN SEE THE POSSIBILITIES'
CNI's development prowess will be tested as it expands beyond Pullman. In addition to its work in Roseland, the organization has teamed with the Lawndale Christian Development Corp. to build affordable homes on vacant lots in Lawndale. CNI also is part of a group redeveloping the former Michael Reese Hospital site in Bronzeville.
In Roseland, CNI is focusing on building homes, teaming with the Rev. James Meeks' Hope Center Foundation to fill vacant lots around the former Salem Baptist Church building. The venture aims to build 100 houses, including lots owned by Salem, the city and the Cook County Land Bank Authority. "It's a more traditional path of creating rooftops and hoping the retail follows," CNI's Doig says. "We think homeownership remains the best path for wealth creation."
There is demand for housing in Roseland, says Lacy of the Far South Community Development Corp. "When we renovate a home, it goes under contract in 48 hours." Far South CDC renovates homes (separately from CNI) and also teams with a modular company to construct the prefabricated homes on vacant lots. It's a neighborhood that's affordable and where people can have a backyard, he says.
Locals are hoping for the development of outpatient medical facilities near the financially struggling Roseland Community Hospital. The Illinois General Assembly established the Roseland Community Medical District in 2011 and set aside $25 million, mostly to acquire land. The city funded a master plan that was adopted by the Chicago Plan Commission late last year.
Lacy's team at Far South Community Development Corp. is serving as staff of the medical district until it gains critical mass. The community needs services for expectant mothers, mental health services and a trauma center. Too many people use the hospital's emergency room for their primary care, Lacy says. "If you're shot in Roseland, you have to be transferred to a trauma center, and you could die on the way."
It will be a challenge to attract a hospital or medical group to open a facility in a neighborhood with a high number of Medicaid recipients. "We're reaching out to Rush, Northwestern and the University of Chicago to see if they would partner with us to bring resources to the Far South Side to address the health desert that we're dealing with," 9th Ward Ald. Beale says.
Another prong of development is underway along South Michigan Avenue under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Invest South/West program. Five teams are competing to develop plans for three locations: the vacant site of the former Gatelys Peoples Store, the historic Roseland Theater building, and land adjacent to a planned CTA Red Line station at South Michigan Avenue and 115th Street. Doig and Lacy lead teams that are developing plans for all three spots. Proposals are due at the end of July, and the city is expected to initially award work for only one of the three locations but also name winners for the other two locations to be tackled later.
The Red Line extension will change the nature of the South Michigan Avenue corridor between 111th and 115th streets, attracting new businesses and forcing out the riffraff, Reed of the Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce predicts. Residents are optimistic.
"I'm happy to see some movement on the Far South Side," says Gloria Cosey, a longtime resident and president of the Rosemoor Community Association. "You can see the possibilities."
Yet the quest for capital is a slog, Lacy says. The city's $2 billion Invest South/West program is spread across 10 districts and 30 neighborhoods. Compare that to Related Midwest's The 78 project on the South Branch of the Chicago River, valued at $7 billion for a single geographic area. While banks pledged billions in community development after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, all the funding either hasn't come through or is spread too thin to make an impact, Lacy says. He concludes that initial development dollars must come through City Hall — only then will other backers materialize.
Chicago developer A.J. Patton, who has projects in South Chicago, West Humboldt Park and North Lawndale, agrees the disparities are discouraging. Black and Brown developers often are asked to sign personal guarantees that put them at risk of bankruptcy if their projects fail, he says. Yet established developers working downtown or on the North Side can often get a large loan without such guarantees. "Why do I need to be a multimillionaire in order to do a development in my community?" he says.
Still, Patton is encouraged that the South and West sides are getting attention. "When was the last time there was a $30 million-plus development in South Chicago?" he says. "You have to start somewhere."
One of the lessons of Pullman that can be applied broadly is patience and persistence. "It took 10 years, but there were a thousand small wins along the way that gave people hope," says Davidson of The Chicago Community Trust. "It could take 20 years or 30 years to build the kind of wealth that you see in affluent communities."