A four-panel mural now stretches across the boarded-up windows of the long-vacant Renaissance Building on Otto Boulevard in Chicago Heights, transforming a symbol of downtown decline into what city and gallery leaders are calling a spark for renewal. The mural, unveiled on August 22, was painted by artist Javier Chavira and commissioned by Union Street Gallery, located directly across the street at 1527 Otto Blvd.
Chicago Heights Mayor David Gonzalez said the city felt the mural could help bring Otto Boulevard “back to life,” according to the Chicago Tribune. Gonzalez said the artwork brings art, character and pride to the area and the street, per the same report. The city has also repaved streets, fixed sidewalks and added decorative lights nearby, the Tribune reports, framing the mural as one piece of a larger streetscape push.
The Renaissance Building was once the longtime home of the Chicago Heights Star newspaper before Star Newspapers expanded the chain and eventually departed to share a building with the Daily Southtown in Tinley Park, the Tribune notes. The building was later deeded to the City of Chicago Heights, which operated social services activities there for a short time, but it has been mostly vacant in the years since.
A Phoenix Rising From the Renaissance Building's Ashes
Chavira, who has been a professor of painting and drawing at Governors State University for more than 22 years and serves as director of the Christopher Gallery at Prairie State College, said he wanted the mural to represent a phoenix rising from the ashes, according to the Tribune. He said he had always wanted to paint another mural, and described art as something that can offer a sense of hope and possibility, per the same account.
The four panels use circular forms as an architectural framework and include a bird readying for flight, a celestial panel, a moonlight panel partly inspired by the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and a creation panel representing an eclipse, the sky and the earth. The mural also includes a tribute to Maya Angelou's poem “Still I Rise,” the Tribune reports.
Chavira, who was born in 1971 in Villa Juarez, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, decided to pursue art after participating in a mural inside Joliet's Union Station, painting part of it after graduating from high school in 1991, per the same report. That mural was painted by Alejandro Romero. Chavira went on to earn his bachelor's degree in 1997 and master's degree in 1999 from Governors State University, later completing an M.F.A. at Northern Illinois University in 2002, according to Governors State University. His artwork has since reached national recognition, including the 2009 acquisition of his 2004 piece “The Warrior/El Guerrero” by the Bank of America Collection and inclusion in the “Art of Illinois” exhibition at the Illinois Governor's Mansion, per Javier Chavira's own professional record.
Gallery Leaders See Art as a Community Anchor
Union Street Gallery board president Danielle Leveston said the mural represents creativity, connection and art's important role in the community, the Tribune reports. Gallery board member Carmen Sendejas, who is also Mayor Gonzalez's wife, and gallery director Julian Graham both took part in bringing the project forward. Graham, who grew up in nearby Park Forest, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Governors State University in 2019 before taking the helm of the gallery, according to Governors State University.
Union Street Gallery has been part of the neighborhood's creative fabric for decades. Artist Mary Kay Witlock has kept a studio of pastel paintings at the gallery for 30 years, the Tribune notes. The gallery itself was established in 1995 as an arts incubator subsidized by the Chicago Southland Economic Development Corporation before acquiring its permanent Otto Boulevard home in 2006 with municipal assistance, according to the gallery's own history. That building, the former Elks Lodge No. 1066, was constructed in 1927 and designated a local Chicago Heights landmark in November 2001, per the Chicago Heights Historic Preservation Advisory Committee.
Mural Fits Into a Wider Downtown Revival Push
The mural's debut arrives amid a broader, multi-pronged effort by city and county officials to revive downtown Chicago Heights. In April 2025, the Chicago Heights City Council approved Resolution #2025-37, appropriating Motor Fuel Tax funds for roadway improvements along Otto Boulevard, Vincennes Avenue, and the surrounding corridor from 14th to 17th Streets, according to the City of Chicago Heights.
Down the street, Cook County and Chicago Heights officials opened Otto Veterans Square in September 2024, a four-story, 82-unit affordable housing development for veterans built for $30.8 million at 1440 Otto Blvd. on the former site of St. James Hospital, according to the Housing Authority of Cook County. That project was the inaugural development to come out of the Downtown/East Side Choice Neighborhoods Plan, a joint city-county revitalization initiative funded in part by a $350,000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development planning grant, per the same source.
Even as investment flows into the corridor, Union Street Gallery faces its own challenges maintaining its century-old home. In December 2025, the gallery launched a public capital appeal to fund critical structural repairs and maintenance for its nearly 100-year-old landmark building, according to the gallery's blog. Governors State University sponsored the gallery's 30th anniversary celebration in September 2025 as part of an ongoing institutional partnership supporting local cultural organizations and alumni working in the south suburbs.
