Lurie Children’s Hospital and Stone Community Development Corporation broke ground on the Austin HOPE Center, which will offer clinical care and community services to young people on Chicago’s West Side.
Over 100 people gathered at 5046 W. Chicago Ave. June 10 to dig up the first shovels of dirt before construction begins on the new community resource building for Austin adolescents.
“The Austin Community Health Hub, soon to be renamed Austin HOPE Center, will be a healing and welcome center for young people and families who seek care, community services, and resources as a whole,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson, an Austin resident.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Johnson announced that he would give $5 million to the Austin HOPE Center from the city’s $1.25 billion bond, which was approved earlier this year as a commitment to neighborhood development. The center will be the first resource funded by the bond.
“I brought it to the West Side first because I know that it’s going to make a real difference in the lives of the people in this community and across the city,” Johnson said. “From the very beginning of my administration, I made it a priority to ensure that all residents, no matter their zip code, have access to affordable and quality healthcare. And today, we are making great strides to invest in our people and to uplift our communities that have often been left behind.”
‘All about community’
The Austin HOPE Center is a part of the local effort to revitalize the Chicago Avenue Corridor after Chicago’s Austin neighborhood has experienced decades of disinvestment.
“Walking the neighborhood every day, I see a change. I see a new day in Chicago, right here on the West Side,” said Emma Mitts, alderman of the 37th Ward, who lives just blocks away from the site where Austin HOPE Center will sit. “That’s what we want to see, using every inch of this space to bring help for our children, our most vulnerable ones.”
The Austin HOPE Center will focus on services for children, based on what Lurie’s Children has noticed among their young patients.
According to data from Lurie Children’s Patrick M. Magoon Institute for Healthy Communities, from 2016 to 2018, Lurie’s Children saw over 7,000 emergency room visits and hospitalizations from young people for violence-related injuries.
New clinical care, services and programs will help serve this demographic.
The 24,500-square-foot Austin Community Health Hub will be split between its co-developers, Lurie’s, Thresholds and Stone CDC, which was birthed out of Lively Stone Missionary Baptist Church.
“I begin to envision a place where people who are hurting could come and get help in healing,” said Contrell Jenkins, pastor of Lively Stone Missionary Baptist Church, of the Austin HOPE Center. “I begin to envision a place where those that have experienced conflict and chaos could come and get compassion and care.”
The first floor of the Austin HOPE Center will house Stone CDC offices and programming space, plus a cafe, community gathering area and outdoor green space. It will also host a teen lounge and two community meeting spaces for training and programming put on by the Magoon Institute.
The next floor is where Lurie’s Children will offer clinical exams and services for pediatric behavioral and physical health. Specialty care services include those for high-risk asthma, autism, kidney disease, sickle cell disease and weight management.
The third floor will house Thresholds, which provides services for community mental health and substance use. Thresholds won’t see any patients here, but instead have offices for its outreach teams.
The start of construction comes after years of collecting local input on the building’s design and what services it will offer.
Lurie’s held the first community input meeting April 2023. Around the same time it selected two local, Black-owned architecture firms to design the project: Gregory Ramón Design Studio Inc. and TnS Studio.
Later in 2023, officials gathered input from clinicians and healthcare providers who live and work in Austin, then from about a dozen middle schoolers at KIPP Academy Chicago. The middle schoolers chose the name Austin HOPE Center, which stands for healing, opportunity, partnerships, and equity and engagement.
After securing zoning approvals at the beginning of this year, construction on the health hub has officially started. Black-owned UJAMAA Construction is the general contractor and construction management company for the project.
Construction will continue through summer 2025 and likely open next fall. In June, UJAAMA will hold an event to engage subcontractors. The following month, the construction management company will host a local hiring event.
“This day is especially exciting to me because it is all about community,” Jenkins said. “This is a chance for us to celebrate what the community asks for, how they help us shape this entire project and what we are going to do together.”
