Julia Louie, Project Manager at HDR, met with us to discuss the design of “Focal Point”. Julia has been working on this project for about four and a half years. The project site is located at 31st and Kedzie on the southwest side of Chicago. The project will replace the existing St. Anthony’s hospital, which is located directly north of the site on Douglas Park. “Focal Point” aims to redefine health in an underprivileged neighborhood, by building a self-sustaining, holistic center.
To achieve “self-sustainability”, the developers will recycle the rent money from retail and other profitable aspects back into public institutions like the hospital and school. The owner’s goal is to reach out to the community to address the wide range health determinants that we discussed with Doug. By addressing these determinants, it will put less pressure on the hospital and lead to a more proactive community in terms of health and well-being. Julie discussed that the self-sustaining project could be executed in other communities around the world.
The guiding principles behind the project are fantastic, and I believe in the goal and the effect it’ll have on the community. However, my main concern with the repetition of this project, is that it takes some very generous developers to achieve a self-sustaining project like this. The owner of “Focal Point” is philanthropic in his efforts to improve the community, but I think it’ll be tough find people with that much money who are so willing to recycle their profit back into the community. It would be interesting to explore ways of incentivizing owners to reinvest their money back into the community their project surrounds.
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