Washington Park's Building Boom Keeps Growing: Affordable Intergenerational Village Wins City Funding — and a Hotel Is Coming to State Street
By Socialhood News · Washington Park ·
Washington Park's stretch of concrete momentum isn't slowing down. Two more significant development milestones have landed in the neighborhood in recent months, adding to a pipeline of projects that is quietly reshaping one of Chicago's most storied South Side communities — block by block, building permit by building permit.
The most recently funded project is the Abrams Intergenerational Village, an affordable housing development planned for 5300 S. Calumet Ave. The project cleared two major hurdles in 2026: a full building permit was approved in January, and city funding was formally approved in July, according to Urbanize Chicago. The development is designed as an intergenerational community — meaning it will house residents across different age groups under one roof, a model that has gained traction in cities grappling with both affordable housing shortages and senior isolation. The Calumet Avenue address places it squarely in the heart of Washington Park, within reach of transit and the neighborhood's growing commercial and cultural corridors.
Intergenerational housing is more than a design concept — it's a recognition that neighborhoods thrive when different generations share space, resources, and daily life. For Washington Park, where decades of disinvestment hollowed out much of the housing stock and displaced longtime residents, a project explicitly designed to house people across age groups carries genuine meaning. It's the kind of development that can anchor a block and give it staying power.
Meanwhile, just a few blocks away on S. State Street, a different kind of project is taking shape that would bring something Washington Park has never had: a hotel. The Chicago City Council approved a two-building mixed-use development at 5301 S. State St. in October 2025, according to Urbanize Chicago. The project calls for a five-story and a six-story building, together delivering 51 residential units and 125 hotel keys — the XS Tennis Residences + Hotel. The development is tied to XS Tennis, the South Side nonprofit founded by the late Don Wilson that has spent years building tennis infrastructure and youth programming in underserved communities. The residential and hospitality components would rise alongside that mission, giving the project an unusual dual identity: part community anchor, part destination.
A 125-key hotel on S. State Street would be genuinely new ground for Washington Park. The South Side has long lacked the hospitality infrastructure that North Side neighborhoods take for granted — a gap that limits everything from tourism to business travel to the ability of families visiting the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center to stay nearby. A hotel tied to a neighborhood institution like XS Tennis changes that calculus in a meaningful way, and 51 new residential units on the same footprint adds density to a corridor that has seen too many vacant storefronts for too long.
Taken alongside the Evelyn's Food Love rooftop expansion, the Sunshine Gospel Ministries community center, the new two-flats on East 56th Street, and the city's mural investment, these two projects deepen a pattern that is becoming harder to dismiss as coincidence: Washington Park is in the middle of a real, multi-front development moment. The Abrams Intergenerational Village adds affordable housing with a forward-thinking design model. The XS Tennis Residences + Hotel adds a hospitality anchor and market-rate density to a stretch of State Street that needs both.
Neighbors who want to follow the progress of either development can track permit filings and project updates through the City of Chicago's development portal and Urbanize Chicago's Washington Park page. For those who want to weigh in on how these projects take shape — or push for the next one — the Washington Park Advisory Council meets every third Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. Visit washingtonpark.org for meeting schedules and the latest from the neighborhood.
Sources:
1. https://chicago.urbanize.city/neighborhood/washington-park-0