Pullman Gateway, a new mixed-use development, breaks ground

Despite rainy weather on Thursday, about 50 people, including community members and business leaders, celebrated the groundbreaking of the 8-acre mixed-use development Pullman Gateway.

The project will be home to the South Side's first Chick-fil-A restaurant and the CTA Red Line Extension office. Plans are underway to bring additional retail and dining options to the site that was once the Hawthorne Racecourse off-track betting facility, near 112th Street and South Corliss Avenue.

Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, a nonprofit community development organization, and Rev. James Meeks with the Hope Center Foundation, the nonprofit he founded, are leading the project.

“The transformation of historic Pullman from its neglected past into today’s growing neighborhood is truly amazing. And with the eventual extension of the Red Line, Pullman will only build on this momentum,” Meeks said.

The estimated $3.7 billion Red Line extension project would extend the L to 130th Street and be completed by 2029.

Construction of the 5,200-square-foot Chick-fil-A is slated to finish by the end of 2024. The fast-food outlet will create 125 new jobs, as well as 145 new construction-related positions.

Hope Center Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Salem Baptist Church, the largest African American church in Illinois with more than 15,000 members. Meeks, founder of Salem, led the recruitment of Chick-fil-A to Pullman.

“Pullman Gateway’s proximity to the Pullman National Historic site and all the businesses and amenities located at Pullman Park and Pullman Plaza have made today’s exciting development possible,” Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) said.

Pullman was created in the 1880s as a company town to house workers who made luxury railroad cars at the factory of magnate George Pullman. Yet over the years, industrial decline gutted the country’s first planned model industrial town.

In 2015, then-President Barack Obama designated Pullman’s historical district a National Monument, making it Chicago’s first National Park Service unit. In December 2022, it became Chicago’s first National Historical Park with the former Pullman factory and clock tower as its centerpiece.

In the last decade, Pullman has seen an influx of new development including a Walmart; the first Whole Foods distribution center in Illinois; the first Gotham Greens greenhouse outside of New York; the Pullman Community Center, the region’s largest indoor sports and education facility; and a Method soap plant that was the first factory to open in Chicago’s South Side in 30 years.

Yet there are just a few nearby dining options, such as Potbelly and Culver’s fast-casual outlets and Lexington Betty’s Smokehouse restaurant. A coffee shop, the only one in the area, recently opened inside the visitor's center of the Pullman House Project, a nonprofit that leads tours of the area’s historic homes and restores them.