News Articles

By Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune | May 1st, 2018  (Click here for the original article) Continuing its quest to spruce up city and suburban neighborhoods, the Cook County Land Bank is putting 3,189 vacant lots up for sale. The lots will be made available at below-market rates to individuals, developers and organizations. The land bank is hoping those who buy the properties will redevelop them in ways that meet community needs, by creating amenities like public gardens, play lots and basketball courts. Most of the vacant lots are in areas hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis and are delinquent on taxes. [...]

By Becky Vevea, WBEZ Chicago | May 1st, 2018  (Click here for the audio clip) More than 3,000 vacant, tax-delinquent properties across Cook County go up for sale Tuesday at below-market rates, as part of a government program to get blighted homes back on the tax rolls. It’s the latest move by the Cook County Land Bank Authority, which was formed in 2013 after the housing crash to deal with the tide of newly vacant and abandoned properties in Chicago and the suburbs. Officials there are hoping the addition of the 3,189 vacant lots to the land bank’s portfolio will further help break a [...]

By Katherine Newman | April 25, 2018  (Click here for the original article) Chicago’s Chesterfield Community Council recently hosted their 14th annual free Citywide Home Expo at the Tuley Park Field House located on 90th St. and King Drive. The Chesterfield Community Council is a community based non-profit organization that was started in 1955. The organization regularly organizes and participates in community activism along with hosting their annual Citywide Home Expo and the annual Silas Purnell College Expo. The free Home Expo was designed to bring Chicagoans together with all the housing-related resources that are available to them. “The motivation to do the [...]

By Becky Vevea, WBEZ Chicago | May 1st, 2018  (Click here for the audio clip) More than 3,000 vacant, tax-delinquent properties across Cook County go up for sale Tuesday at below-market rates, as part of a government program to get blighted homes back on the tax rolls. It’s the latest move by the Cook County Land Bank Authority, which was formed in 2013 after the housing crash to deal with the tide of newly vacant and abandoned properties in Chicago and the suburbs. Officials there are hoping the addition of the 3,189 vacant lots to the land bank’s portfolio will further help break a [...]

By Danny Ecker, Crain's Business Chicago | February 1, 2018  (Click here for the original article) A Cook County agency designed to give new life to distressed houses is getting into the commercial property game, with its first such project just blocks from the site of the future Obama Presidential Center. After acquiring the deed last month to the dilapidated former Washington Park National Bank building in Woodlawn, the Cook County Land Bank tonight will hold the first of three community meetings about the property to gather feedback on what it should become. The 94-year-old structure on the southwest corner of [...]

By Mary L. Datcher, Chicago Defender | February 1, 2018  (Click here for the original article) In 2010, Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer noticed something out of the ordinary—calls were coming in more frequently about constituents challenged with losing their homes. Aware of the housing market collapse and predator loan practices by banks, long-time home owners were seeking assistance from their public officials. “People were calling me, they’re getting letters from the bank. People were worried if they had to move out that day—a lot of uncertainty. To be honest, the banks didn’t really know what to do. Half way through [...]

By Sam Cholke, Curbed Chicago | January 31, 2018 (Click here for the original article) The Cook County Land Bank Authority is racing into large-scale mixed-use developments, and as its first project will take on a crumbling bank that’s loomed vacant over the Cottage Grove Green Line stop in Woodlawn for 20 years. The Washington Park National Bank, 6300 S. Cottage Grove Avenue, is the Land Bank’s chance to prove it can take on substantial developments, and Executive Director Rob Rose’s wants to go into the first project at a sprint. At a Tuesday night meeting to discuss options for the four-story building with [...]

By Craig Dellimore, CBS Chicago | November 20th, 2017 (Click here for the original article) CHICAGO (CBS) — The Cook County Land Bank Authority celebrated Monday the 200th home that’s been rehabilitated under the innovative program. Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer helped create the Land Bank after the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. WBBM’s Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports. She said most people did not have the expertise or ability to buy the homes vacated during the debacle. “We built this thing called a land bank. We went into communities where homes were sitting vacant, we bought them up, cleared the titles…and then put them out on a [...]

By Dennis Rodkin, Crain's Business Chicago | November 20th, 2017  (Click here for the original article) A stylishly rehabbed Chicago Lawn bungalow is the 200th formerly derelict home revitalized through the Cook County Land Bank, officials are announcing today, as the agency hits the benchmark a few months ahead of schedule. "When we started, that goal of 200 homes seemed like a hairy, scary goal because nothing like this had been done in Chicago before," said Rob Rose, executive director of the land bank, launched by the Cook County Board in 2013 to speed up the process of turning around the county's huge inventory of [...]

By Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune | September 29th, 2017 A vacant brick bungalow on South Luella Avenue in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood requires some work — in fact, quite a bit of work. The orange kitchen, despite having a coveted island, needs updated appliances, new cabinetry and flooring. The toilet in the main floor bathroom is broken and the peach carpet smells of cats. But for a prospective homebuyer looking for a house with good bones, the home has potential. It’s just one of the 30 to 40 homes the Cook County Land Bank Authority is putting up for sale as [...]