Hilco Redevelopment Partners partnered with local youth sports organization Beyond the Ball to break ground on the renovation of existing basketball courts used to provide year-round youth sports programming in Chicago’s Little Village Community. The renovations, which will be funded by HRP, will include new pavement, striping, fence repairs and LED lighting.
The Little Village basketball courts are located on the campus of two Chicago public schools, Joseph E. Gary and Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez Elementary located at the intersection of 31st Street and Lawndale Avenue. Ortiz and Gary Elementary are home to approximately 1,500 students from Pre-K to 8th grade.
“Transforming the Gary and Ortiz Elementary School Basketball courts is a unique opportunity to create meaningful change in our hometown and in the same community where we have transformed a former coal-fired power plant into a sustainable economic engine, creating thousands of jobs here in Little Village,” Roberto Perez, CEO of HRP, said. “We are proud to work with our partners at Beyond the Ball to help build an environment for this community and its youth to grow and thrive.”
“Beyond the Ball is greatly appreciative to HRP for the investment in the basketball courts at the Gary/Ortiz campus,” Robert Castaneda, founder of Beyond the Ball, said. “Throughout the years, HRP has given school supplies, including shoes, meals for families during the holidays, provided toys for youth at Christmas and coats for all ages during the winter. This donation is different. It provides infrastructure that contributes to public safety in our community.”
“We value Beyond the Ball’s commitment to providing our school community with year-round sports programming and thank Hilco Redevelopment Partners for the much-needed basketball court improvements that will support our efforts to keep our students and community active and healthy,” Alberto Juarez, principal of Joseph E. Gary Elementary School, said.
“Research shows that publicly owned spaces can increase or decrease crime in the surrounding community by up to 60% based on two factors. The first is how often the space is used in an organized way,” Castaneda said. “Beyond the Ball has partnered with CPS, especially the principals of Gary and Ortiz elementary schools, to intentionally program this outdoor space year-round since 2009. The second is the condition of the built environment. Beyond the Ball does regular maintenance work in this space, but projects like lighting or resurfacing are not within our capacity. In my 25 years of living in the community, the lights on the basketball courts at the Gary/Ortiz campus have never worked. I am so excited for our community and especially our young people to have basketball courts with a brand-new playing surface and lighting.”
The renovations will transform the basketball courts, which are currently poorly lit and experiencing cracking, depressions and potholes, into safe and modern facilities. The construction work will be performed by Bear Construction, the general contractor working with HRP on the nearby Lawndale Fleet Storage Yard redevelopment.
