Kenwood Affordable Housing Complex Sale Moves Forward

A Cook County Circuit Court judge approved a consent decree Wednesday clearing the way for the sale of Ellis Lakeview Apartments, a troubled affordable housing complex at 4624 S. Ellis Ave. in Kenwood, with a new owner required to fix the building’s remaining code violations within two years.

The ruling by Judge Lisa Ann Marino sets firm deadlines for window, facade, and elevator repairs at the 4624 S. Ellis Ave. property, which has been stuck in buildings court since March 2021. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as Freddie Mac, purchased Ellis Lakeview through foreclosure in 2024 after former landlord Apex Chicago IL repeatedly failed to bring the building up to code despite multiple chances from different judges over several years.

Freddie Mac now wants to sell the building to Standard Communities, an affordable housing company with offices in Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago. Standard Communities director Tregg Duerson said the firm aims to close the sale by May 12. Local firm Evergreen Property Management would take over day-to-day operations, becoming the building’s fifth management company in four years.

That number tells its own story.

Under Marino’s order, window and facade repairs must begin within 150 days of the sale closing, with facade work finished by Oct. 31, 2027, and windows replaced by March 31, 2028. The building’s two elevators must be modernized or replaced by May 1, 2028. The city and the Ellis Lakeview tenants association can return to court if Standard violates the terms or “spirit” of the decree, Marino said.

City buildings commissioner Marlene Hopkins told the court Wednesday that her department would “work to expedite reviews so permits can be issued in a very timely manner.” That commitment matters, because permit delays have historically slowed repairs at buildings caught in Chicago’s housing court process long past the point tenants can absorb.

Not everyone in the courtroom supported the agreement. The Ellis Lakeview tenants association opposed it, according to Block Club Chicago’s coverage of the hearing. Association attorney Eric Sirota said tenants wanted a clear deadline built into the decree for when elevator work must begin, not just when it must end. Tenants also pushed to expand relocation assistance for residents forced out by emergency repairs.

The relocation question is pointed. Under a separate agreement between the buildings department and Standard, tenants can only get emergency relocation help if both elevators are down for three consecutive days and the affected resident has a disability or health issue. For a building that has struggled with basic habitability for years, that’s a narrow window.

Sirota argued the hardships residents face don’t fit neatly into those categories.

Attorneys for the city, Standard Communities, and Freddie Mac all backed the consent decree. The tenants association stood alone in opposition, a split that reflects a familiar tension in Chicago affordable housing cases: institutional parties eager to resolve litigation often move faster than the people actually living in the building are ready to accept.

Ellis Lakeview has been a chronic problem property on a block of Kenwood that, like much of the neighborhood, has seen both reinvestment and disinvestment run side by side for decades. The National Housing Law Project has documented how buildings that cycle through multiple management companies in short windows tend to accumulate deferred maintenance that takes years to unwind. Ellis Lakeview fits that pattern precisely: five management companies in four years, a foreclosure, and a buildings court case that’s now five years old.

Marino’s next hearing is scheduled for May 20, when the judge will confirm whether the sale has closed and whether the consent decree has formally taken effect. If Standard Communities hits the May 12 closing target, the building’s residents will finally have a clear legal framework governing what repairs get made and when.

Whether that framework is strong enough to protect them is the question the tenants association brought to court Wednesday and didn’t get answered the way they hoped. Standard Communities will have until May 1, 2028, to complete elevator work that tenants say should have started long before any of the lawyers in that courtroom began arguing over timelines.