CNI Brag Book

Pullman:
A Design for Community
Development and Impact

PULLMAN,
the historic community built in the 1880s by Pullman’s
Palace Car Company, is widely recognized as one of the
nation’s first planned industrial communities. And
because of its Romanesque architecture, also one of its
most beautiful. Now visitors to the neighborhood’s house
tours and the designated Pullman Monument marvel at
the community’s vitality, but this wasn’t always the case.
Rather than spinning another tale of an industrial town
ravaged by neglect and abandonment, Pullman presents
a remarkable story of resilience and recovery.
While Pullman was a thriving community throughout
much of the 20 th Century fueled by the rail car and steel
industries, the exodus of industry from the Pullman yard
shutdown in the 1960s through the closing of Ryerson
Steel in 2006 left the community with a loss of jobs and
population and a growing abundance of vacant land,
abandoned historic buildings and soaring unemployment
and crime rates.
While the pundits and the public wrote off Pullman as
just another victim of a changing global economy, there
existed strong local forces that saw potential in the
attributes that others neglected – an unparalleled
location where the nation’s rail, roads, waterways

connect; vast tracts of contiguous available land; 98% of
its original housing stock which, despite being distressed,
was well-designed and well-built; and a strong grassroots
movement that forged support with local
institutions and elected leaders and were fiercely
committed and passionate about revitalizing Pullman.
What was needed to transform hope and dreams into a
strategy and success was a community development
partner. Such a partner was founded in 2008 when a
local bank saw the potential about which others spoke
and created an affiliated nonprofit community
development organization – one that eventually became
Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI).
From the 10 th floor window of the building it occupied,
the fledgling community development organization
could see first-hand the acres of vacant land and
buildings that exemplified the challenge. The defining
question was: “Where to begin – by promoting the sale
of the 180-acre site to which it sat adjacent, or
addressing the latest addition of abandoned homes
caused by the recession in 2008, or trying to salvage the
crumbling infrastructure of the old Pullman Factory?”
CNI began its work in Pullman by listening – convening
an extensive community planning process, involving a
myriad of grass-roots block clubs and organizations,
facilitating 80 community meetings and a host of
planning workshops. From this process evolved these
key themes: job creation and retail access; affordable
housing; and recreation and tourism.
While this list of priorities could resonate in many of
Chicago’s or the nation’s under-invested communities,
the next question for CNI was how to begin to tackle the
varied objectives? The strategy soon became apparent
during the planning process, and CNI took the lead on
the integrated and intersecting need for housing renewal
and increasing employment opportunities and
recreational amenities.

OUR IMPACT
The impact of CNI’s efforts can be measured by
looking at what has been produced in terms of
generating investments, creating new developments
and other opportunities that have improved the
quality of life.
CNI’s commitment and resources have
turned $132 million of its own coordinated
investment, including over $125 million from U.S.
Bank, into $339 million of additional public and
private investments that has created 1,300
new jobs.
However, there is more to Pullman’s story than jobs
creation. It has also:
And CNI’s commitment and achievements in
the Pullman community were recognized
when it was presented with several prestigious
awards:
| The John Baird Award for Stewardship in
Historic Preservation in 2015 for the restoration
of Pullman’s historic rowhomes.
| The Chicago Community Trust Award for
Outstanding Community Strategy in 2015
| The Burnham Award for Excellence in Planning
from the Metropolitan Planning Council in 2016.
Pullman

+
CREATED
200+ new units of single-, and multi-family
affordable housing
over 1 million square feet of commercial,
industrial and recreational space
INCREASED
number of jobs in the community by
43% between 2010 and 2015
l
number of six-figure households by 58%
number of college graduates by
nearly 10% between 2006 and 2015
property values 136%; Pullman
experienced the second highest level of home
appreciation among all Chicago neighborhoods
average annual rate of new construction
is 20x higher than it was prior to CNI’s work
l
DECREASED
violent crime 52% from 2005 to 2015
(Chicago Tribune)
violent crime 34% from 2015 to 2017
(MPC); the area within most of CNI’s investment
has not experienced a single homicide since 2014

Credit: Gotham Greens and

Julie McMahon
JOB
CREATION &
RETAIL
ACCESS
Following the significant exodus of resident and worker
population from the steel industry closings, CNI
understood that creating new jobs was the only option
to bring people back to Pullman. So CNI turned its
attention to attracting new businesses to generate new
jobs. Using the resources on hand, and through the
extraordinary united efforts of community organizations,
government agencies and local elected officials, CNI and
the City of Chicago secured the first national-retailer
based shopping center on the city’s South East Side.
In 2012, with an initial $5 million grant from the State of
Illinois for infrastructure work on the former site of
Ryerson Steel, CNI broke ground for Pullman Park, a
$125 million mixed-use site at 111 th Street and I-94
anchored by a 150,000 square foot Walmart Supercenter,
where as a result of a Community Benefits Agreement,
employees earned higher wages as compared with other
Walmart workers nationwide.
When the Walmart opened in 2014, it was the first and
only store in the area to provide access to quality foods.
Soon it was accompanied by a new Ross Dress for Less,
Planet Fitness and an Advocate urgent care clinic. Having
secured additional public transportation routes to better
serve the area, the bustling Pullman Park shopping center
today provides the community not only with goods and
services, but with nearly 700 jobs.

Credit:

Three years later, CNI developed another retail center –
the 111 th Street Gateway, at the entry to the Pullman
National Monument site, bringing a Potbelly’s Sandwich
Shop with a drive-thru and a minority-owned Star Dry
Cleaners. Today, plans are underway to create a new
food hall within the retail center and grow additional
local small businesses thanks to a $1 million grant from
JPMorgan Chase, helping CNI’s Micro Finance Group
(CNIMFG) to make microloans to entrepreneurs in
under-resourced communities.
“All the new retail signals that Pullman is once again
becoming a major destination for families, businesses
and visitors,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
While focusing on attracting retailers to Pullman Park,
which fronts the expressway and offers unparalleled
visibility along the eastern most portion of the former
Ryerson site, CNI had equally ambitious plans for the
west – attracting new businesses for which the rail, road
and water connections would be important assets.
The hard work and strategy paid off. The first company to
locate just west of Pullman Park was Method Home
Products in 2014, one of the world’s leading makers of
environmentally-friendly cleaning supplies. It was here
that the company built its first U.S. based plant, a $30
million, 150,000 square foot manufacturing and
distribution center at 720 East 111 th Street, in a building
that gets almost half of its power from renewable energy
created by a giant wind turbine and solar panels.
“We reviewed more than 100 sites from across the
country but Pullman’s access to transportation and a
skilled workforce were the leading factors in our decision
to move there,” said Method Products Chairman
Jonathon Bond.
Gotham Greens

Joining them was another newcomer to Chicago,
Gotham Greens, the worldwide pioneer in the field of
urban agriculture which built the world’s largest
commercial rooftop greenhouse atop of the Method
plant in 2015. Now the greenhouse grows and distributes
more than 20 million heads of lettuce annually. And in
the Spring of 2018, Gotham Greens “doubled-down” on
Pullman and began building a new 140,000 square-foot
greenhouse and administration building. Once
completed in 2019, the new facility will become the
largest-ever built in Chicago and it will create 60 more
full-time, green collar jobs.
“Thanks to the leadership and hard work of the City of
Chicago, 9 th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale, CNI, and all
of our community partners, Pullman has been a great
place to do business,” said Viraj Puri, CEO at Gotham
Greens. “This is the perfect time for us to expand our
presence in the Midwest, and Pullman is the ideal place
for us to do so,” added Viraj.”
Additional excitement arrived at the crossroads of
Pullman and the Lake Calumet region in early 2018 when
Whole Foods opened its new Midwest Distribution
Center. The new 150,000 square foot distribution center
occupying 17 acres of once-vacant land, allows Whole
Foods to join two major suppliers, Method and Gotham
Greens in the Pullman neighborhood. It serves more than
70 Whole Foods’ locations across the Midwest and parts
of Canada and its 90 employees earn an average of
$42,000 a year. To attract Whole Foods to its new
location and ensure the site was competitive, CNI helped
secure $8.4 million in TIF assistance from the City of
Chicago to pay for site preparation costs, including
grading, demolition, and utility installation. The new
Pullman location provides a building double the size of
its former facility in Indiana.
These new manufacturing and distribution entities
created another 400 jobs, making Pullman one of the
fastest growing employment sites in all of Chicago.

AFFORDABLE
HOUSING
While the south part of the community with its historic
church and parks had long seen stable ownership and a
thriving community life, the northern half of Pullman,
closer to the original Pullman Factory complex was a
different story with failing rental housing amid a sea of
abandoned buildings.
CNI began by investing $5 million in the preservation and
renovation of dozens of Pullman’s historic rowhouses for
sale or rent, through its partnership in the Micro Market
Recovery Program with the Neighborhood Housing
Services of Chicago and the City of Chicago. This
neighborhood stabilization initiative provided resources
for rehabbing and purchasing homes in Pullman, in
addition to helping existing homeowners prevent
foreclosure.
CNI worked to bring Mercy Housing to the community to
take over the Pullman Wheelworks – a mammoth 200
apartment rental complex that had fallen into severe
disrepair and disrepute. CNI’s efforts generated a $15
million investment by Mercy Housing that not only vastly
improved the structure but also stabilized the immediate
area, encouraging additional investment like Butler
College Prep, a Noble Charter School, and further
renewal in the community.
Another additional investment came in the form of a new
housing opportunity and one that would make Pullam
the choice for young creative minds – Artspace Lofts, an
innovative work/live space featuring 38 rental apartments
and community space for exhibits. CNI helped to finance
the project, securing a mix of grants, Historic Tax Credits
and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. Once construction
of the new Artspace Lofts is completed in 2019, and it’s two
adjacent historic buildings are restored, it will be first new
residential construction in Pullman in approximately 50 years.

RECREATION
& TOURISM
A 20 year-long dream comes to fruition. After being
urged by national and local leaders, preservation groups,
members of the community and other key stakeholders,
President Obama designated a portion of the Pullman
Historic District as part of the National Park System in
2015. This included the historic clock tower and
administration building at 111 th Street and Cottage Grove
where CNI and the National Park Services (NPS) have
launched a $35 million renovation project. Once
construction is completed, the clock tower will be
transformed into the new Visitor Center for the Pullman
National Monument site, which is expected to attract
more than 300,000 visitors annually.
“Once we introduce visitors to the nationally significant
Pullman stories, we will encourage them to explore the
community and visit the National A. Philip Randolph
Pullman Porter Museum and the Historic Pullman
Foundation Visitor Center,” says Kathleen Schneider,
Superintendent of the Pullman National Monument.
Thanks to the commitment and efforts of members of
the community and elected officials, another positive
development in Pullman has been its public schools like
Edgar Allen Poe Elementary School and Gwendolyn
Brooks College Prep, among the best performing schools
in the city and state. And Chicago’s Olive-Harvey College
recently announced a $45 million transportation-training
center.
In 2017, the academic performance of students from Poe
earned the first-ever National Blue-Ribbon Award for a
CPS elementary school on the city’s South Side. It was
one of only 16 public schools in Illinois and 342 schools
nationwide to be honored with this distinction.

In the fall of 2018, CNI’s development of what Chicago
Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts described: “The most
substantial community athletic project of its kind” will
open – the Pullman Community Center. The new $20
million, 135,000 square foot Center at 104th and
Woodlawn Avenue will provide a safe, fun nurturing
environment for Pullman’s young people and young at
heart, and the surrounding communities.
Privately funded by a dozen of Chicago’s leading civic
and business organizations and professional sports
teams, the Pullman Community Center will become the
largest year-round sports, educational and cultural
programming facility in the region. More than 1,100
participants and visitors each week are expected to use
its indoor playing fields and surfaces as well as take
advantage of its flexible space for community events,
exhibitions, classrooms, camps and tournaments.
The Center will create approximately 100 full- and parttime
jobs, including new employees from CNI’s
partnership with Chicago Creating Real Economic
Destiny (CRED), a workforce development program for
at-risk neighborhood youths. Programming will be
coordinated by the Roseland Youth Center.
“We’re creating a place where people of all ages, skills
and interests can come together in a safe place,” said 9 th
Ward Alderman Anthony Beale.
Another safe place in Pullman was recently created when
a truce between gangs led to the transformation of a
neglected block into a new playground for children on
South Corliss Avenue.
“When I asked the young men what they wanted in
return for a truce, they said they wanted a park for their
kids –it was incredibly powerful,” said Arne Duncan,
CRED, and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of
Education.
Now that the playground is completed, CRED has hired
the young men to maintain the park.

BEYOND
PULLMAN
In Pullman, CNI created a model – comprehensive
community development, involving simultaneous efforts
in housing, economic development and civic amenities.
It is a strategy with which CNI, in partnership with other
grass-root organizations and community leaders is
working to implement to help transform other Chicago
neighborhoods.
In Bronzeville, CNI works with Farpoint Development,
Draper & Kramer and the Bronzeville Community
Development Partnership, among others, on one of the
largest redevelopment projects in the city – Burnham
Lakefront – the former Michael Reese hospital site which
is one of the eight locations in Chicago that’s vying for
the Amazon Headquarters.
Also in Bronzeville, CNI, the Chicago Housing Authority
and the City of Chicago delivered a new 75,000 square
foot Mariano’s Grocery Store at 3857 South Martin Luther
King Drive that opened in 2016 and created 400 jobs
with 95 positions for CHA residents. CNI and its
development partners awarded 40% of all construction
contracts to minority and women owned firms. The
Mariano’s brought a full-service grocery store to a
longtime food desert and features more than 50 different
locally made products by Chicago food companies.

CNIMFG
Another important vehicle for fueling the growth of new
opportunities has been CNI’s Micro Finance Group
(CNIMFG), a nonprofit microlender and certified CDFI. By
making microloans of up to $50,000 to entrepreneurs
and individuals, CNIMFG has deployed more than $2
million in capital to fuel the growth of more than 100
minority-owned small businesses in under-resourced
and disinvested neighborhoods throughout the Chicago
area.
In Pullman alone, CNIMFG has deployed eight
microloans totaling $120,000 to catering, engineering,
delivery and retail businesses. CNIMFG’s loan to the
Pullman Cafe brought the first sit-down restaurant to the
Pullman historic district in over 20 years. It provides a
great spot for residents and tourists to enjoy a cup of
coffee or a salad featuring Gotham Greens’ lettuce or
the Cafe’s famous warm lemon bar. CNIMFG also
collaborated with CNI to provide a loan to fund
construction of the 111 th Street Gateway retail at the entry
to Pullman National Monument.
Pullman embodies the remarkable public and private
collaboration, innovation and creativity that it takes to
increase equity and attract new jobs and investments
that can catalyze the revitalization of under-resourced
neighborhoods, even Midwest industrial towns. A close
look at CNI, Pullman and other urban areas demonstrates
what can be accomplished when individuals,
government agencies, business leaders, civic
organizations and philanthropists work together
encouraged to create and achieve a shared vision.

CHICAGO NEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVES
773.341.2070 | www.cnigroup.org
Credit: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture