Bickerdike's La Estancia development will offer one- to four-bedroom units ranging in rent from $450 to $650 a month, according to department of planning and development officials, which puts them within reach of households earning 50% or less of the area's median income. The housing for working families is in a redeveloping Humboldt Park area that is seeing three-bedroom condominiums selling in the neighborhood of $350,000, they add.

Tax increment financing is needed to help the nonprofit developer of affordable housing build the 57 units, as well as 12,585 sf of retail space that also will be leased to merchants at affordable rates, over two separate sites, says Colleen Stone of the department of planning and development. "Without TIF assistance, completion of this project would not be feasible," she says.

While retail space already is being leased for $22 per sf or more east of Western Avenue, La Estancia will offer rates more in line with the $8 per sf to $12 per sf local merchants are used to paying a mile west, says Enrique Salgado, executive director of the Division Street Business Development Association.