'Drastic Shift' in Area as Chateau is Vacated, Neighbors Say

The final three residents at the Chateau Hotel are moving out by Friday, but area neighbors and business owners say their community already feels drastically improved.

Officials began working on vacating Chateau Hotel in January when new owner BJB Properties announced they planned a gut-rehab to make way for market-rate housing. Then on June 13, a judge ordered the remaining residents need to leave by Friday.

But residents surrounding the long controversial hotel at 3838 N. Broadway St. say they already feel safer in their own neighborhood.

Cliff and Veronica Hagerman watched their young daughter run around the playground at Gill Park directly next to the former single room occupancy hotel. They live just a block away and say things already feel different.

“Before I’d rather go to the park by (Graceland Cemetery),” Veronica said. “… I used to just avoid coming down here, especially at night, but even just at 5 p.m. Lately it’s been so different.” 

Her husband Cliff added he didn’t even know they were vacating the building, but now that he looked back at the past few weeks, it “absolutely has changed.”

Also watching her daughter play in Gill Park, Anita—who declined to give her last name—shared the same sentiment. She says while the Lakeview Pantry still serves the same clients as Chateau, she’s seen her neighborhood improve.

“Yes, it’s changed. In fact, I was just telling friends I wouldn’t normally come to this park, even,” Anita said. “It was terrible. Always people loitering, I’d see drunks over here. I’m glad they are doing something.”

Starbucks employees across the street say they’ve noticed a change simply in the amount of times they need to call police, laughing that recently an entire week passed where the cops weren’t called. That’s combined with local business owner Paul Hackett saying he’s noticed a big change.

“I actually knew some of the people who lived there and were great, but there actually has been a drastic shift in the neighborhood,” Hackett said.

Affordable housing advocates with the Lakeview Action Coalition sent out a statement following the judge’s ruling to vacate the building saying they continue to work with BJB’s principal James Purcell to hopefully preserve affordable housing units in his buildings.

Between the Sheffield House, Bel-Air Hotel, Abbott Hotel, Ambers Hotel and now Chateau Hotel, BJB Properties has purchased and transformed five SROs in Lake View, accounting for roughly 700 housing units.

LAC community organizer Mary Tarullo told WBEZ she knows many of the residents were forced to move relocated on the South and West Sides, as well as taking up residency in area homeless shelters. That’s combined with some moving to other SROs and even more doubling up with friends, she said.