Jazz at Walter Circle
A Neighborhood Anchor
Jazz at Walter Circle is a culturally and environmentally-expressive ocean-liner that anchors the 15th and Bowman Metralink TOD station area in a repopulating patch of East St. Louis.
Top to bottom, the building was designed to provide a high quality of life for its 74 senior families. The ground floor provides long-lost neighborhood amenities—a fresh grocer, deli, health clinic, and an event space. Each upper-floor apartment has a full kitchen, accessible bathroom, and a French Balcony, providing access to sun and breezes, and planter boxes that give the ability to grow fresh herbs.
Each floor offers two places where seniors can come together to entertain neighbors and friends: a common sitting room in the bridge over Walter Street, and a south-facing outdoor sun patio. The south roof is designed to be a third-of-an acre urban garden, structured to carry two feet of Midwest topsoil.
Signature Development provided the project with a two-part vision: a full menu of quality-of-life amenities and a strong sustainability agenda. The innovative project financing—New Market Tax Credits and Public Housing Replacement Funds—was a Midwest first.
Client: East St. Louis Housing Authority
Location: East St. Louis, IL
Role: Architect of Record, Corridor Planning
Size: 74 units; 60,300 SF
Completion: 2014
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LEED Gold
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CNU Illinois Charter Merit Award, 2011
Bank of America Affordable Green Neighborhoods Grantee
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Signature Develoment
The ground floor provides long-lost neighborhood amenities—a fresh grocer, deli, health clinic, and an event space.
Walter Circle, a traffic-calmed public space nested in the center of the long building, sets the stage for future development.
East St. Louis native son Miles Davis and Jelly Roll Morton inspired music-themed murals and trumpet-shaped scuppers that visibly convey water from roof to root.
