Site Planning & Design

For decades FitzGerald has made a major contribution to the Midwest’s housing stock with over 30,000 units planned, designed and built. Our portfolio includes a full spectrum of housing types, including work-force housing, public housing, student housing, market-rate units, luxury residences, loft conversions, single family homes and mixed-use buildings in low-, mid- and high-rise structures.

Above all, we are committed to creating compelling places where people will want to live, work, shop and socialize and that will remain focal destinations long into the future. Too often in the past the planning process has produced quick-fix designs that fail to take into account the complexities of a particular site or requirements of specific housing programs.

FitzGerald understands the need for an appropriate, well-developed plan to serve as the foundation for the continuing growth and evolution of a community. As a result of our extensive architectural experience, we provide Planning services that combine an intimate knowledge of the design of numerous residential types and styles, commercial facilities and retail spaces with a true understanding of the need for successful planning to create engaging and attractive spaces that function well now and into the future.

Alongside our work with market- and luxury-rate communities in some of Chicago\’s most prominent neighborhoods, we have seen the escalating price of entry-level housing and recognized the growing need for affordable workforce housing. To that end, we are proud to have participated in the rejuvenation of a number of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation neighborhoods including Parkside of Old Town (Cabrini-Green Homes), Oakwood Shores (Ida B. Wells & Madden Park Homes) and Park Boulevard (Stateway Gardens). Thoughtfully designed as a new generation of affordable housing, we have strived to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Our master plans for these communities, we believe, represent a true turning point in public housing in Chicago. We focused on the creation of balanced communities that bring together low-income, affordable and market-rate housing units, each indistinguishable from the street, in neighborhoods where thriving residential and commercial spaces did not previously exist.

We understand what is required to stimulate investment in communities, by making them great places to live and reconnecting them with their surroundings. Our long experience has taught us how to best mend the urban fabric in ways that stimulate growth and bring vitality back to neighborhoods.