The first indoor sports and community center on Chicago’s West Side is one step closer to breaking ground, ideally this fall.
Lawndale Christian Development Corporation — which aims to revitalize North Lawndale with affordable housing, economic development, and community empowerment — was awarded $10 million to fund the $38 million One Lawndale Recreational Center at the intersection of Cermak and Springfield. The center will have indoor turf fields, basketball courts, and rooms for boxing, fitness equipment, wrestling and other multi-purpose spaces.
One Lawndale Recreation Center is designed to be a hub for youth empowerment and violence prevention. In addition to sports leagues and leadership development initiatives, the center will also offer mentoring and mental health support.
“North Lawndale is becoming a community where entrepreneurs launch businesses, organizing nurtures leadership, and neighbors lift one another up,” said Whittney Smith, deputy director of LCDC, in a statement. “This prize fuels our momentum, affirms our shared responsibility, and inspires everyone in North Lawndale to keep building a future defined by possibility, dignity and lasting change.”
The money came from the Lohengrin Foundation’s Thriving Youth, Stronger Communities initiative, which awarded the recreation center and Erie Neighborhood House in Little Village a combined $15 million prize out of 73 citywide submissions. The initiative funds youth and community centers in Chicago that create safe spaces and address root causes of violence.
A large source of funding like this early on in a project is a significant milestone, according to LCDC, since it attracts other philanthropic, corporate and public funding.
Construction is anticipated to start by fall and be completed next year.