Donna and Philip Arrigo are planning to check into the hospital where they both were born.
But they’re both healthy, and the hospital has been closed for more than a year. What’s going on here?
Call it unique recycling.
The former St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Hospital on the Near West Side will soon be welcoming residents instead of patients.
Kenard Corp., a real estate development firm based in Chicago, bought the shuttered 87-year-old hospital last year for $2 million. Instead of tearing it down, which has been the fate of many aged medical facilities, the decision was made to convert it to residences.
Called Columbus on the Park, the $23 million project will offer 105 lofts and 28 townhouses. Prices range from $86,900 to $245,900 for the lofts, and $259,900 to $399,900 for the townhouses.
What will it be like for the Arrigos, living in the building where they took their first breaths?
“A little weird,” said Philip Arrigo, who is retired from the Oak Park fire department. “This should put some irony into our lives.”
“It will bring back great memories,” said Donna, a real estate agent. “My roots are there. It’s a real neighborhood, with warm and friendly people.”
Currently living in Wheaton, the Arrigos are empty-nesters who plan to use their new one-bedroom loft condo for weekend getaways, and as an investment.
Added irony is that the park adjoining the property on the west has their name. Arrigo Park, a large expanse of green space, is one of the selling points for the project.
“We used to call it Peanut Park (because of the peanut-shaped walkway that meanders around the park),” said Donna.
Columbus on the Park is the latest residential development of the husband-and-wife team of Harold and Gerry Lichterman, founders of Kenard Corp.
They envisioned a new lease on life for the old, vacant hospital. The six-story brick structure, at Racine Avenue and Lexington Street, was built for the Sisters of the Sacred Heart under the leadership of Mother Francesca Xavier Cabrini. Mother Cabrini named it Columbus Extension Hospital.
According to Gerry Lichterman, its purpose was to serve the predominantly Italian-American community in the “Little Italy” district of the Near West Side.
“Many of the residents in the area were born in St. Cabrini Hospital, and they are pleased the building will remain part of the neighbrhood,” she said.
The site is located midway between the University of Illinois at Chicago campus on the east and the West Side medical complex on the west. It is bordered on three sides by residential uses, while the park is to the west. The popular Italian restaurants along Taylor Street are within walking distance.
To the south is the Jane Addams Homes, one of the city’s oldest public housing developments, dating from 1936. The Chicago Housing Authority is working with residents on a redevelopment plan.
The hospital has two H-shaped wings, a design that allows many more windows than a typical warehouse loft conversion.
While the exterior will retain its institutional look, the interior is being completely gutted, including the third floor maternity ward where Philip Arrigo was born in 1940 and Donna in 1944.
“It’s a tough demolition job,” said Harold Lichterman. “Hundreds of miles of piping and tubing have to be removed, as well as all the old plumbing. And the original east wing has 12-inch-thick interior walls.”
Although the first units won’t be ready until the winter of 1998, the new residential ambience can be viewed in two decorated models on the fifth floor.
A one-bedroom, one-bath loft with 857 square feet overlooks Arrigo Park.
The other model, with two bedrooms and two baths, has 1,398 square feet. It features a north-facing balcony with views of the city’s skyline, including Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center. Half of the lofts will have balconies.
Units in the older half of the hospital will have 10 1/2-foot drywall ceilings, while those in the newer wing will have sandblasted 11-foot concrete beam ceilings.
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The lofts will have individually controlled forced-air heating and central air conditioning. Monthly assessments will range from $140 to $359.
The 105 parking spaces are priced from $8,500 to $15,000. The lower two levels of the building will be set aside for parking.
The hospital’s old parking lot on the north side will serve as the site of construction of the 28 townhouses, tobe built in two rows.
The two- and three-bedroom residences with 2 1/2 baths will have attached two-car garages, roof decks and penthouses and front yards enclosed by a wrought-iron fence.
An Italian touch–towers crowned with Tuscan-style roofs–has been incorporated into the three-level townhouses by Patrick FitzGerald of FitzGerald Architects.
Ted Mazola, owner of New West Realty, the marketing agent for Columbus on the Park, said about half of both the townhouses and lofts have been sold.
Tony Smaniotto, vice president of investment properties in CB Commercial’s downtown office, was the broker for the seller of the hospital, Catholic Health Partners of Chicago.
“The hospital went on the market because it couldn’t keep enough patients to make staying open economically feasible,” he said.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was among many medical facilities nationwide hit by dwindling revenues due to shorter hospital stays dictated by health insurance plans, tighter federal reimbursements for Medicare patients, more emphasis on outpatient treatment and other causes.
“Eight developers were interested in buying the hospital,” said Smaniotto. “Seven of them wanted to tear it down and do townhouses, but Lichterman saw value in saving the existing structure.”
While recycling an aging hospital into new residences is an unusual solution to preservation, it has happened before in Chicago.
The former St. Luke’s Hospital at 1439 S. Michigan Ave., which played a role in the relief effort after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, was revived in the 1990s as a loft condo development called Trevi Square.
Two other Chicago hospitals–Augustana in Lincoln Park and Henrotin on the Near North Side–had a different fate. They were razed to make way for new housing developments, the Pointe and the Oak Club, both built by MCL Cos.
“It was cheaper to build new rather than retrofit,” explained B.J. Spathies, president of Bejco Development Corp. and co-developer of the Oak Club.
The adaptive reuse of hospitals is likely to continue.
“Many hospitals, housed in antiquated buildings, are sitting on prime real estate,” said Spathies.
Meanwhile, the old St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Hospital, which Lichterman described as “built like a fort,” is a survivor, being reborn as Columbus on the Park.
It will be a homecoming of sorts for Donna and Philip Arrigo.