Celestine Metcalf, a resident of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Albany Terrace Apartments, remembers when she woke up Christmas morning in 2022 to find that her foyer had frozen over.
A pipe had burst from the cold and flooded the entryway, leaving it “covered with ice,” the 67-year-old said, but the building’s senior residents had to walk across it “if you want to get out.”
On Thursday, Metcalf, who has lived in Albany Terrace Apartments for four years and is a resident ambassador, stood in the bright, newly renovated entrance of her building as snow came down hard, pointing out where the flooding had once spread.
“(It’s) like you just got a new toy or you just got something new, and you’re just so excited and you want to show it off to everybody,” she said.
During Chicago’s first snow Thursday morning, Albany Terrace Apartments’ senior residents celebrated the completion of the $93 million renovation of their 50-year-old South Lawndale building at a ribbon-cutting attended by the developers and local housing officials.
In late December 2022, just weeks before renovations on the building were scheduled to begin, residents of Albany Terrace told the Tribune about burst pipes and days spent without working heat.
Yet amid Thursday’s freezing temperatures, residents were staying warm in a new community space with wood paneling and hanging lights, drinking coffee and eating pastries as snow covered the building’s redone courtyard with a layer of white.
“I have heard the complaints, I have heard the dissatisfaction, but look at what you have today,” said Ald. Monique Scott, 24th, whose great-grandmother lived in Albany Terrace. “It’s clean, it’s bright, it’s vibrant, it’s everything that I think that we could have imagined — or couldn’t have imagined.”
Renovations of Albany Terrance came as part of a larger push by CHA to improve housing conditions within its senior buildings on the West Side. Last month, another ribbon-cutting took place at the rehabilitated Irene McCoy Gaines Apartments, a CHA senior building in East Garfield Park.
“These are exactly the types of projects that CHA will be doing more of in the future,” said interim CHA Chief Executive Officer Angela Hurlock at Thursday’s event. “After all, CHA has an obligation to all of our residents to ensure that they are living in safe and modern homes, and this obligation is especially profound when we talk about our senior residents, who deserve to live in dignity and comfort.”
Albany Terrace is now equipped with new central cooling, heating, plumbing and electrical systems. A third elevator was installed to serve residents of the 17-story building. Individual units were repainted and refloored, with upgraded kitchens and bathrooms, while the common areas on the ground level were redeveloped to include a new fitness center, health and wellness center, package room, on-site management office and community room.
Resident council President Nadine Mason, who has lived in Albany Terrace for almost 11 years and grew up in South Lawndale, said that she “loves” the renovations.
“We have everything we need right here,” Mason said. “I want us all to take pride in what we have here. This is where we live, and we want to respect it.”
Mason said that the residents are excited to hold Friday night bingo in the new common room. After Thursday’s event, she planned to head to the Dollar Tree to buy prizes.
The revamp of Albany Terrace by Michaels Development Co. and CHA began in February 2023. Though all residents of the 350-unit high-rise were given the option to move out until the project was completed, the vast majority elected to remain, according to Mason.
“I’d liken the rehab of an occupied building to working on a highway while traffic runs over it,” said Greg Olson, regional vice president of Michaels Development.
The rehabilitation of each floor was staggered over time, according to CHA Chief Development Officer Ann McKenzie, allowing residents to remain in their original units until they could move into a brand new renovated apartment.
Barbara Foster, 67, said she knew a renovation was being planned when she moved into Albany Terrace seven years ago. Soon after, she said, she woke up to drops of water falling on her head due to flooding in the ceiling of her apartment.
“A boiler and then a pipe would break, something else would break, it was a constant thing every single year from the time I moved in,” Foster said.
She chose to stay in the building throughout the construction, and said that although it was “noisy,” contractors kept residents’ living areas “clean and safe” and notified them about each step of the process.
As she walked through the fitness center Thursday, watching snow gather on the newly installed fire pits outside, she said that the building was “nothing like this, nothing,” prior to the renovations. “This is beautiful,” she said.
The project was funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which aims to assist public housing authorities in preserving existing housing by making it easier for them to get financing for renovations.
The city of Chicago and the Housing Authority also provided financial support for the project, while U.S. Bank was the construction lender and investor.
At Thursday’s news conference, Olson thanked the residents for their patience as they “worked on giving this building another life.”
“The development of affordable housing in today’s economic climate is very difficult, and to build 350 units of new housing would likely take a decade to complete,” Olson said. “As such, the preservation of existing affordable housing stock in Chicago was really critical.”
