Neighborhood News
The State of Illinois has released its report cards for neighborhood schools, including for Horizon Science Academy at 2245 W. Pershing Road. The school, which educates kindergarteners through high schoolers, showed a mix of performance results, with one bright spot being mathematics performance for elementary students.
As previously reported, state report cards showed other neighborhood schools facing significant challenges while realizing some gains. The situation is similar at Horizon, which has a student body mostly made up of low-income students, about a quarter of whom have limited English proficiency.
Read more: Horizon Science Academy Rated in Illinois State Report Card
Three gargantuan city-owned properties in the Central Manufacturing District received scrutiny from architects and planners this past Friday, February 23, during a tour designed to market their sale and redevelopment.
As a lead-in to C40's Reinventing Cities design competition, the tour meandered through the lots and buildings stretching from 1717 to 1819 West Pershing Road, led by representatives from the City of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development.
Read more: Tour Offers Peek Inside Central Manufacturing District Buildings
Many homes in Cook County have inaccurate property taxes, and 7th District Cook County Commissioner candidate Angie Sandoval is providing some help via a Property Tax Appeal Seminar at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 3, at the McKinley Park field house. Presented alongside Illinois State Senator Antonio "Tony" Munoz, the seminar will assist homeowners in understanding and appealing their property taxes.
Families will find entertaining fun at the McKinley Park library this week, including Games Day at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, when the library breaks out both tried-and-true gaming classics and six new games each month. Players can go head to head at Chess at 1 p.m. on Thursday, March 1, at the library, and bingo fans can get their fix at the weekly Bingo games, Wednesday evenings at Blessed Sacrament Parish.
Read more: Get Property Tax Help, Enjoy Gaming Fun This Week in McKinley Park
Crain's Chicago Business has again featured the McKinley Park neighborhood as a choice spot for home buyers and a hot real estate market in a recently published article as part of its "Where to Buy" series.
The article, which compares McKinley Park against suburban Libertyville, notes McKinley Park's rising home prices and competitive market, with single family homes selling, on average, in 60 days in 2017, versus the citywide average of 92 days.
Read more: Crain's Again Highlights McKinley Park Real Estate
The McKinley Park Neighborhood Plan is now online! Click here to read the plan.The McKinley Park Development Council, a young non-profit founded to enable neighborhood economic, social and cultural development, moved forward with building the group and defining programs at its meeting on Wednesday, February 21, at the McKinley Park field house. Breakout sessions of committees focusing on neighborhood business development, events and beautification began creating roles and priorities for the group's activities.
The nearly 30 meeting attendees represented a broad swath of the neighborhood's residents, business owners and leaders. As stated by President John Belcik, the council continues its work to develop a comprehensive neighborhood development plan with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), and a launch and rollout for this will occur in the early spring.
Read more: Neighborhood Development Planning Advances at Council Meeting
