Sarah Loewe 
CHICAGO (CBS) — Just after many years of disinvestment, there are new and essential assets coming to the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
They are all housed in one particular new Healthier Life style Hub at 839 W. 79th St., just west of Halsted Street. We have been pursuing the progress of the creating for several months, and on Friday, CBS 2’s Irika Sargent was there for the grand opening.
You could remember in July, Sargent and CBS 2’s Joe Donlon have been at the very same building for a distinctive half-hour report about the reaction to mass shootings on the city’s South and West sides. We selected the Nutritious Life-style Hub as the backdrop for that newscast as a indicator of hope for the real change that can be created at the local community level – when investments are manufactured in our neighborhoods.
The constructing at 839 W. 79th St. was built in 1925. The former furniture shop had been sitting vacant for the last 25 several years. It is appropriate future to Leo Higher School on 7901 S. Sangamon St., and learners had to stroll past the shuttered making on the way to university.
The Higher Auburn Gresham Growth Corporation established its sights on building a venture that would provide the full community – a constructing that would residence clinical and dental products and services, a pharmacy, a café, a bank, and so considerably additional.
On Friday, they celebrated that aspiration coming to lifetime. All through the grand opening celebration from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., citizens walked as a result of an open residence to understand about all the assets coming to the Auburn Gresham community. Much more than 600 friends were being predicted in all.
Carlos Nelson, chief government officer of the Increased Auburn Gresham Growth Corporation, was the a person who 1st experienced the strategy for the Nutritious Lifestyle Hub.
“We’ve been functioning on this considering the fact that virtually 2016 as a vision to bring back to lifestyle this vacant 60,000 sq.-foot creating which is just sat ominously right in the vicinity of 79th and Halsted – the busiest bus line in the entire metropolis of Chicago,” Nelson reported.
The Chicago Bears have been a big benefactor, donating extra than $600,000 for the venture.
“When the Chicago Bears listened to about our operate doing the Racial Equity Fast Response process force executing COVID response function in Auburn Gresham, they preferred to get associated with what we were doing,” Nelson explained.
1 of the missions with which the Bears signed on was to carry significant-good quality health and fitness care. Yet another was to show methods to clearly show how food items can be applied as medication – in the form of a large-tech educating kitchen, Nelson reported.
In all, the Auburn Gresham Development Company secured practically $20 million for the undertaking. The Pritzker Traubert Basis was a main benefector.
Also amongst the components of the facility are a UI Wellness Clinic and urgent treatment centre operated by the University of Illinois at Chicago on the 2nd flooring, along with a pharmacy. The urgent care middle will offer healthcare, dental, and mental overall health treatment, and expects to provide 30,000 people in the upcoming yr by yourself.
On the third floor, neighbors can link with Heartland Alliance, which aims to support people out of poverty for work opportunities, housing, and family members services. The UIC Community Middle will also have a location presenting tutoring and tiny organization workshops.
On the initial floor, there will be a Financial institution of The united states and a regional Black-owned restaurant and coffee store.
Sargent spoke to a female who conducts diabetes instruction, and she explained there are also strategies for a diabetic issues instructional workshop at the Nutritious Way of living Hub.
Larger Auburn Gresham Growth Corporation senior director Linda Johnson emphasised the need to have for much better well being care in Auburn Gresham.
“Auburn Gresham has been struggling from a lot of, quite a few wellness inequities for more than the many years,” she stated, “and due to the fact of the higher populace of seniors in the local community, this is a dream occur genuine.”
Johnson emphasized that the initial person to die of COVID-19 in Chicago was an Auburn Gresham resident. Patricia Frieson, 61, died in mid-March 2020.
The new hub will insert over also add 150 work opportunities to the local community, with the goal of setting up prosperity for generations to occur who are living in the spot.
The future objective for the Wholesome Life style Hub is to open a women’s well being center for prenatal and postnatal care. A senior activity middle, a fitness center, and a food pantry are also prepared at the Wholesome Life-style Hub in the upcoming, Nelson mentioned.
Some are contacting it the Miracle on 79th Avenue.
Nelson was thrilled to see hundreds of men and women turn out at the grand opening Friday evening.
“This is so exclusive to me, and I get requested, how do I really feel about this? I’m most thrilled about the smiles, and the faces, and the glimmers in the eyes,” he said. “This is definitely about the local community – the neighborhood getting ownership of this as their task their setting up.”
Meanwhile, the excellent news keeps coming for Auburn Gresham. Auburn Gardens, a $40 million economical housing development, is becoming developed ideal throughout the road from the hub.
A $35 million Metra Electric powered Line station is also set to open down the avenue in 2024.
Neighborhood leaders say these initiatives will not only deliver chances, but also support in violence avoidance.
