Patterson Park Community Development Corporation

Since 1996, the Patterson Park Community Development Corporation led by Executive Director Ed Rutkowski has worked tirelessly to stabilize and improve the neighborhoods of Patterson Park. The neighborhoods north and east of Patterson Park were showing signs of severe disinvestment by the mid-1990s. The values of houses were stagnant or declining, homeowners were moving out, and the numbers of vacant and foreclosed houses were increasing.

In 1995, the Abell Foundation learned of Ed Rutkowski’s personal commitment to join with fellow neighborhood residents to privately purchase vacant properties and renovate them for sale to new buyers. Before the concept was fully tested, he created the Patterson Park Neighborhood Initiative hiring organizers to join neighbors together to define the issues affecting their neighborhoods including crime, less than robust city services and nuisance issues. Ed Rutkowski became a careful student of neighborhood dynamics affecting Patterson Park, the increase in foreclosure and vacancy, the impact of drug activity and the effects of rapid racial change writing a book on his findings called the Urban Transition Zone.

Observing neighborhood conditions worsen, the Abell Foundation provided a $40,000 start-up grant to form the Patterson Park CDC and committed to guarantee a portion of private bank loans for acquisition and renovation of houses. With community representation on the board, the organization was intended to acquire, renovate and sell houses to target neighborhoods north and east of the park. In the first nine months of operations, the CDC completed in-house architect-designed renovations on three houses.

Initially with a flat and declining market, sales were slow and together with the Foundation, programs were developed to draw buyers into the neighborhood and reassure existing homeowners. The Foundation offered a grant of nine years of Catholic school tuition to purchasers of CDC houses and created a Home Value Guarantee program modeled on equity assurance programs in Chicago to guarantee payment of losses due to declining property values for owner-occupants living in their house for five years or more.

The Patterson Park CDC identified early on that one critical key to neighborhood revival was to make people feel safe in and fully utilize the park day and night. They recognized that Patterson Park was undervalued and under-programmed and in turn, they supported the development of the Friends of Patterson Park nonprofit organization. The Friends has advocated for and raised money for the redevelopment of the boat lake, the restoration of the Pagoda and marble fountain, replacement of a dilapidated playground and installation of perimeter lighting as well as developed and supported programming of over 50 events each year held within the park. The Friends have become stewards of the park, logging thousands of volunteer hours each year to staff the pagoda and participate in park clean-ups and develop, support and staff events.

Additionally with grants from the Abell Foundation, the CDC pioneered the design concepts of combining tiny alley houses into spacious, modern houses, worked with neighbors and the Police on issues of crime, created a clean streets program to remove trash and debris on streets and alleys, and supported the creation of a charter school in the former St. Elizabeth’s parish school building and a Montessori pre-school.

Over a period of ten years, to support the work of the Patterson Park CDC, the Foundation provided a total of $1 million in grants, $1 million in working capital loans that have been paid in full, and $1.5 million in mortgage guarantees that leveraged over $13 million in private acquisition and construction financing. The organization received significant grant support from numerous local and national foundations and financing by private lenders and local and state government.

When the Foundation began working with the Patterson Park CDC, the neighborhood was experiencing disinvestment and a lack of a functioning housing market where the incidence of foreclosure and vacant housing were increasing. Patterson Park CDC led the transformation of the neighborhood into a community of choice with increased home sales and homeowner investment and purchase and renovations by private developers. The average sales price of houses increased from $71,000 in 2000 to $288,000 in 2005. Since its formation, the Patterson Park CDC created stunning market-setting renovations of vacant houses and sold over 150 houses to homeowners. In addition, the organization renovated over 160 vacant houses to increase options for rental housing within the neighborhood.