Will Chicago State University score with an ambitious campus redevelopment plan?

Chicago State University has issued a call for developers to build a half-mile of student housing and retail stores along 95th Street, on the campus' north edge.

Dubbed University Village 95, the 2,300-student university seeks to build 232,000 square feet of new construction and green space on a two-acre lot between Cottage Grove and St. Lawrence avenues. The land is mostly trees and access roads to the university's parking lots.

If realized, the development would be a possible game-changer for Chicago State, primarily a commuter university largely secreted on a wooded 161-acre campus at 95th Street and South Martin Luther King Drive.

"Our goal is to build a campus town kind of experience for the South Side," CSU President Zaldwaynaka Scott said. "If you look at what the University of Chicago has done for Hyde Park, in terms of how it's stabilized the community ... and [brought] retail resources and hotel resources to that area, I think our plans have the capacity to do that."

The university partnered with real estate firm CBRE to craft and issue the request for developer proposals, which hit the streets late last month.

Conceptual renderings hint the team is seeking three- and four-story structures — no big dorm towers.

The buildings would pull up to the sidewalk's edge on 95th Street. Another set of buildings would sit behind them, with an east-west ribbon of green space separating the front structures from the rear ones.

According to the proposal guidelines, University Village 95 would be built in four phases.

The first buildings — 528 bedrooms of student housing and 25,000 square feet of retail space — would be built on what is currently a bus turnaround at 95th Street and St. Lawrence Avenue. It's expected to open in 2027.

"What we see is an increased demand for student housing," Scott said. "We look at our growing student population and we see that a larger number of our students are not only coming from out of state, they're coming outside of a range of 60 miles or more."

The development also would be a huge step for the city's 95th Street Corridor Plan, which was adopted in February. The plan seeks improvements ranging from better public transit and health outcomes, more walkable streets and more retail along 95th Street and the neighborhoods that abut the thoroughfare from Halsted Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue.

"Chicago State was a planning partner for the corridor plan which anticipates and supports the university's goals for mixed-use development along 95th Street," a Chicago Department of Planning spokesperson said.

Some of this is already happening.

CSU and Metra broke ground in June on a $56 million expansion and rehab of the 95th Street/Chicago State University station on the Metra Electric Line.

The dank old train station — which was as depressing as failing final exams — will be replaced by one that promises increased accessibility and connections to the university.

It would be also on the same side of the street as the proposed University Village 95. In addition, Advocate Health Center is bringing a $10 million immediate care center to its Imani Village outpatient facility at 901 E. 95th St.

CSU was built in 1972 on what had been a vast Illinois Central Railroad yard. In the decades since, the campus
has matured into one in which its buildings sit in a near-forest of mature trees.

Scott said that will be unchanged.

"Our trees are what makes us Chicago State," she said. "And I think that our community has come to respect us as the tree campus. The beauty of the campus is in its trees ... and I think as we look at climate change, those trees become even more important."

Developers have until 3 p.m. on Oct. 25 to respond to the request for proposal, CBRE said. A development team expected to be selected by Dec. 8.