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Developer Planning $30M Senior Housing Apartment Complex In Bellwood 


A building at 540 25th Ave. in Bellwood that once housed a Walgreens could be demolished and replaced with a senior housing development. | File 

Saturday, February 26, 2022 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews || Updated: 2/28/22

UPDATE: The Bellwood board has since voted in favor of the redevelopment agreement and land donation agreements. 

A developer is looking to build a four-story, 80-unit apartment building for senior citizens at 540 25th Ave. in Bellwood, the site of a former Walgreens store that’s been abandoned for nearly a decade. 

During an interview on Feb. 26, Bellwood Mayor Andre Harvey said Evergreen Real Estate Group is the firm driving the development, which is called the Bellwood Senior Apartments. 

According to its website, Evergreen is a “fully integrated real estate company that develops, acquires and manages affordable and market-rate multifamily communities across 10 states” in the South and Midwest. The company owns and manages more than 100 properties and 10,000 units of multifamily housing, according to the website. 

David Block, Evergreen’s director of development, said Evergreen also manages the Garden House of Maywood, an affordable apartment community for senior citizens at 515 S. 2nd Ave. in Maywood. Block said that, as with the Garden apartments, the Bellwood apartments will “100% affordable.”

A rendering of the proposed Bellwood Senior Apartments, which would be built on the corner of 25th and Washington in Bellwood. | Provided 

Harvey said that the village will also donate to Evergreen the land on which the old Walgreens sits, which the village owns. In addition, he said, the village will loan Evergreen $10 million from funds available in the Bellwood – Addison Creek Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district. 

“Since the property is in a TIF district, we can make that loan and get paid back, so we are not really giving up anything,” Harvey said. “For us, that puts a piece of blighted land back on the tax rolls and increases our tax base.”

A rendering of the proposed Bellwood Senior Apartments, which would be built on the corner of 25th and Washington in Bellwood. | Provided 

Harvey and Block estimated the total cost of the project at around $30 million. The mayor said Evergreen will likely get a variety of tax credits. Block said those credits will come from the Illinois Housing Development Authority.

“That land has been undeveloped for a long time,” the mayor said, referring to the former Walgreens, which closed in 2015. “We kept wondering what to put there. I told my economic development team to see if we could get more senior housing, because that’s something we need.” 

A rendering of the proposed Bellwood Senior Apartments, which would be built on the corner of 25th and Washington in Bellwood. | Provided 

Harvey said that demolition of the Walgreens could start in April, with construction possibly completed in 2023. 

The Bellwood Board of Trustees is expected to vote on a redevelopment agreement and to approve a land donation agreement for the property at a special meeting on Monday, Feb. 28, at 3:30 p.m. 

The meeting will take place in the Bellwood Village Board Room, located on the second-floor of the village’s municipal building at 3200 Washington Blvd. in Bellwood. 

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly noted that Evergreen would get a property tax incentive from the village. This article has since been updated. VFP regrets the error. 

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