Casa Querétaro
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Closing Date: February 5, 2021
Project Description & Impact: 45 affordable homes for families
Client: The Resurrection Project (TRP)
Financing Tools Used: Low Income Housing Tax Credits, HOME, CHA Capital dollars, TIF, etc.
The Story Behind this Project
Our long-time client, The Resurrection Project, a non-profit community development corporation that uses affordable housing, lending, wealth building, community organizing, advocacy, and leadership development to strengthen communities and families, spent almost two decades reclaiming and transforming this site from a toxic use into community homes. TRP was founded over 25 years ago by 6 Catholic parishes who each contributed $5,000 to help start TRP to deal with violence and vacancy in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. 28 years later, that initial $30,000 investment has been transformed into over half a billion worth of investments in affordable housing, schools, parks, and other community amenities in Pilsen and beyond.
Casa Querétaro, or Casa Q as it is commonly known, consists of 45 homes for low-income families, including 15 homes for public housing families. As Pilsen continues to be a “hot spot” for new housing, hipsters, cocktail bars, and trendy restaurants, Casa Q is an important community asset–providing high-quality affordable homes for low-income immigrant families in the heart of a strong and strengthening community near jobs, transit, good schools, and opportunity.
DesignBridge Ltd. the designers of Casa Q were awarded the first place Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Architectural Excellence in Community Design. They designed Casa Q as a ribbon-shaped building which includes amenities such as a custom mural with a silhouette of the famous aqueduct in Querétaro over a mosaic graphic of Mexican tiles, a ground floor community room for neighborhood events and meetings and additional space for a community garden.
