AIDSCare, a residential facility for people with AIDS, is in a mansion in a high-end Lakeview neighborhood, but its founder and CEO, Jim Flosi, never worried about gentrification driving him out. He figured that if anyone was immune to the pitches of real estate brokers and developers it was the sisters of the Society of Helpers of the Holy Souls, the nuns who owned the mansion and had invited him to set up his nonprofit there. “With our landlords I thought we’d be here for a long time to come,” he says.
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The Meeker Mansion, built in 1913 by a packinghouse magnate, sits on two acres between Barry and Wellington on inner Lake Shore Drive, just west of Lincoln Park. The nuns bought the property in 1945, converted the mansion’s coach house into a residence, and built a chapel and a dormitory. During the 60s and 70s they lived in both the dormitory and the mansion. But their numbers began dwindling, and in 1993 the sisters invited AIDSCare to move into the mansion and coach house. “We needed housing,” says Flosi, “and they had room.”
He says he appreciates what the sisters did for his group, particularly since there are only two other 24-hour-care facilities for people with AIDS in the city. “I have to say that the nuns have been extremely good up until now,” he says. “In essence, they have given us a gift of about $150,000 a year, which is the amount we would probably have to spend on rent. Without them this agency wouldn’t be in existence today.”
Then several developers came to look. This was prime property–one of the largest pieces of mostly undeveloped land left along the north lakefront. According to Flosi, the sisters were offered about $20 million by a developer who was willing to allow AIDSCare to stay. But the sisters accepted an offer from a different developer, LR Development Company, which apparently wants AIDSCare to move. (LR’s president, Thomas Weeks, didn’t return my calls.) According to the Sun-Times, Weeks paid “about $21 million” and “wants to build a complex of low-rise single-family homes.”
Flosi and his staff have been scrambling to find new homes for their residents. “We were able to move some to our west-side facility, but we don’t have enough room there for everyone,” he says. “This is not just a matter of finding them apartments. Some of them need assisted living. They should not be living on their own.”
