Former WNBA champion Devereaux Peters is trying to turn a long-shuttered school in West Englewood into a fresh start for the neighborhood. Her team is steering a plan to convert the closed Bontemps Elementary into the Bontemps Apartments, with a 72-unit multifamily building alongside roughly 60 units for seniors. Peters and her partners say the project has moved beyond the sketch-on-a-napkin phase and is now grinding through zoning, final drawings, and financing, with construction still about two years out if approvals and capital fall into place. The effort is one of several attempts to recycle closed Chicago Public Schools buildings into new, affordable homes in communities that have weathered years of disinvestment.
Peters told WTTW News she wants to “get rid of that stigma” around affordable housing by delivering high-quality spaces that actually lift up the surrounding blocks. She also told WTTW she stepped in to lead the West Englewood effort from a business partner who started the work about five years ago, and said the project’s split between family units and senior apartments is meant to meet different needs on the same site. The Bontemps plan recently picked up momentum after the city awarded low-income housing tax credits that help stabilize the project’s financing picture.
City Awards Fuel a Bigger Affordable Push
The Bontemps tax credit reservation landed in a broader Qualified Allocation Plan round where the City of Chicago committed more than $300 million to 15 developments across the city. Urbanize Chicago reported the package is expected to create or preserve about 1,223 units, and that the QAP round layers city support on top of federal tax credits. For projects like Bontemps, that mix of local assistance and tax credit equity is often the line between a nice concept on paper and a building that actually breaks ground.
Coaching New Developers Through Tough Financing
Peters is also part of the Next Generation Capacity Building Initiative, a program run by the Illinois Housing Development Authority and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation that offers emerging developers technical coaching, one-on-one help and access to early-stage capital. IHDA lists Peters among recent Next Gen participants and notes the initiative is specifically designed to help younger, more diverse development teams compete for federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and move ideas from concept to shovel-ready. LISC has also put pre-development money into the West Englewood plan, which Peters says is helping her team move faster on design and permitting.
From Closed School to Community Anchor
Bontemps was one of dozens of schools that Chicago shut down in 2013, and many of those buildings sat empty for years before any serious redevelopment plans emerged. The Chicago Tribune reported that the district approved a bid for the former Bontemps property and noted that turning old school sites into housing usually means dealing with costly remediation, zoning changes and multiple financing rounds. Developers say the process is slow and expensive, but neighborhood leaders often back projects that swap out long-term blight for homes and services that bring people and activity back to the block.
Peters’ Playbook and What It Means Locally
Peters is not going into the West Englewood deal cold. Earlier this year, she and her partners broke ground on a 57-unit mixed-use project in South Bend that she says gave the team a crash course in pacing and financing. Cinnaire, a partner on that development, covered the March groundbreaking for “The Monreaux” and listed Peters’ firm, Chateaux 14 Development, among the lead developers. Peters says that experience is shaping how she approaches the more complicated school-to-housing conversion at Bontemps.
Advocates and city officials are treating Bontemps as an early test of a broader playbook that combines city QAP awards, tax credit equity and capacity-building programs to speed up affordable housing production on the South and West sides. Peters and her partners stress speed, design quality and community benefit as they push toward the zoning approvals and funding milestones that would let construction start. If the timeline holds, Bontemps will stand out as one of the first disused CPS buildings in West Englewood to become long-term affordable housing instead of another vacant landmark on the corner.
