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Former Bucktown Corner Store Faces Wrecking Ball, Modern Abode Coming Next

By Alisa Hauser | November 18, 2014 5:47am | Updated on November 18, 2014 8:26am
 A former corner store in Bucktown, a one-story building and a detached garage are being torn down to make way for a new single-family home.
2046-48 N. Hoyne Ave. in Bucktown
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BUCKTOWN — A vintage corner building in Bucktown that once served as a neighborhood grocery store is scheduled to be demolished and eventually replaced by a new single-family home on a double lot.

The buildings at 2048-48 W. Hoyne Ave., which include a one-story building, a two-story apartment building and a detached garage, were sold for $925,000 to Heath and Rakita Fuller in August 2013.

The Fuller family, who currently live in Lincoln Square, are working with Roscoe Village-based Blender Architecture to build a new single-family home featuring an exterior made from lead-coated copper panels and dark masonry.

(See exterior renderings of the new home).

Reached by phone, Heath Fuller declined to discuss details on the size of the new home but said, "It is not a 7,000- or 8,000-square-foot monstrosity."

"We are not covering both lots from lot line to lot line," Fuller said. "Ours is a home with a side yard that is three times the amount of green space than the city requires.

"We do want people to understand there was no value in reusing" the existing buildings, Fuller added. "The building is old; there was no way to preserve the foundation."

Fuller said he was unsure of an exact demolition date but believed that a teardown would take place this week or next. Further work such as pouring a new foundation will begin when the weather gets warmer, he said.

Built in 1909, the multiunit building at 2048 N. Hoyne Ave. is not listed in the Chicago Landmarks Historic Resources Survey, which is a basic starting point for determining if a building has historic value.

The building has been vacant for the past few years, according to Pat Duffy, who lives in a rented apartment across the street with his fiancee, Christina Altermatt.

Duffy said in recent weeks another old building was demolished on the opposite end of the block.

"If it continues in this pattern of turning from old modest buildings that have history to new modern homes, the neighborhood would lose character. We live here because of character," Duffy said.

On the Bucktown Community News Facebook page, Tim Grace, a 57-year-old lifelong Bucktown resident and freelance writer, alerted his neighbors to a demolition permit issued by the city on Thursday.

In a telephone interview on Sunday, Grace said it's "very sad" that the building will be torn down.

"Chicago is a city of neighborhoods in addition to cultures and individual architectural styles that differentiate areas," Grace said.

While Grace said he has not seen what the new home will look like and even admitted "it could be better" than what is currently there, he said "the one bad part is that it could look the same as other modern buildings."

Grace said that the building, on the southwest corner of Hoyne and Dickens avenues, was once a family-run corner grocery and candy store that had great banana splits.

Grace said he went to the store in the early '60s and recalls it closing sometime around 1990.

When informed of some of the teardown backlash, Fuller said he spoke with several neighbors who thanked his family for bringing a new home to the neighborhood.

"When we notified neighbors, they came out overwhelmingly in support and said that [the existing building] is an eyesore," Fuller said.

Realtor Bessie Alvarez, who helped the Fuller family buy the buildings, said the properties were snapped up quickly because double lots are "becoming harder to find in Bucktown."

Elsewhere in Bucktown, Blender Architecture recently converted a turn-of-the-century stone church at 2041 W. Dickens Ave. into a single-family home.

2048 N. Hoyne Ave. by Blender Architecture

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