A New Lease And Life For Former Lakeview Funeral Home

By Danette Chavez in News on Mar 30, 2015 5:45PM

A real estate developer wants to make a little more room in Lakeview for those who are dying to live there, but there's a slight catch: your new home sweet home is a former funeral home.

David Trandel, of Stonestreet Partners, plans to convert the old Herdegen-Brieske Funeral Home into luxury loft living for the living. The desirable location, at the intersection of Southport and Wellington Avenues, makes it prime for renovation. Trandel freely cops to the creep factor, saying he doesn't want to dismiss what "could be a real issue." But the potential he and his partners see in the spot and posh neighborhood overrides those concerns.

The details are still being worked out but it looks like the building could be mixed use, with retailers occupying the first two floors. Stonestreet and Trandel are still trying to decide whether to have the residential units on site or place them on a neighboring lot, which means residential tenants might end up only former mortuary-adjacent. What's far more frightening is the starting rent, with a one-bedrooms reportedly going for $2,500 monthly.

This kind of repurposing isn't unique to Chicago; in New York's East Village neighborhood, a former funeral home/townhouse was converted into fancy apartments with terraces, starting at a mere $4,900 a month. But this latest bit of real estate development news does bring the story of the Herdegen-Brieske funeral home full circle: the gentrification that saw the funeral home close its doors last fall is now the driving force behind its new life.