Pullman residents will soon get a chance to try the chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A, a fast-food chain popular on the North Side and in many suburbs but so far absent on the city’s Far South Side. A partnership between the nonprofits Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives and the Hope Center Foundation has broken ground on the new restaurant, the anchor tenant of Pullman Gateway, an 8-acre commercial center taking shape on the former site of an offtrack betting facility.
“We once had to drive far outside our community to go to a restaurant or to a grocery store,” said the Rev. James Meeks, president of the Hope Center Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Salem Baptist Church of Chicago. “There was no sit-down restaurant or even a pizza place that would deliver to our homes.”
Other initiatives by the developers over the past decade brought in restaurants such as Potbelly, Culver’s and Lexington Betty Smokehouse, along with a new Walmart. The initiatives established a community center and created jobs at several new manufacturing and distribution centers. Meeks said it’s all meant to replace the thousands of jobs lost starting in the 1970s when the decline of heavy industry gutted the economies of both the Pullman and nearby Roseland neighborhoods.
“Back in the ’70s, Michigan Avenue in Roseland was almost like North Michigan Avenue downtown,” he said. “We had stores, movie theaters and restaurants.”
The Culver’s, opened in 2021, did about $3 million in sales last year, said David Doig, president of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, and that attracted other retailers such as Chick-fil-A.
“I think we’ve proven that this is a viable retail corridor,” he said. “And we’ve learned that once you get Chick-fil-A, other folks want to be there as well. They drive traffic.”
The developers are close to signing deals with other retailers, and Pullman Gateway, located just east of Pullman National Historical Park, could soon see a bank and other fast casual and sit-down restaurants, he said. They expect to finish construction of the Chick-fil-A at 11201 S. Corliss Ave. by the end of 2024. The 5,200-sqaure-foot restaurant will provide about 145 construction jobs and 125 permanent jobs. It will start out as corporate-owned, but Doig expects Chick-fil-A to eventually seek out a franchise owner.
Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, said many national retailers may not have realized that Pullman and Roseland restaurants can make money.
“I don’t think they were looking at our neighborhoods, but we have a dynamic team in place and we’re going after their business,” he said. “We get in front of them and we’re salespeople for our community. We’re not sitting back and waiting for them to come to us.”
Beale said other initiatives, including a proposed 480,000-square-foot medical campus in Roseland, at 111th Street and South Michigan Avenue, will help revive the Far South Side. The Chicago Plan Commission approved the Roseland Medical District Master Plan in 2022, and the state later awarded the effort $25 million for land acquisition, environmental cleanup and infrastructure improvements.
“This could be a potential Northwestern Memorial Hospital or University of Chicago Medical Center, but for the Far South Side,” Beale said.
Meeks looks forward to the launch of the Chicago Transit Authority’s Red Line extension project, which will extend the train line from 95th Street in Roseland to 130th Street in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood.
“People will be able to travel here, and people who live here will be better able to get out and go other places to work,” he said. “We’re praying and believing that with the Red Line extension, we will see the old glory days of Michigan Avenue return.”
