Little Italy, UIC · Cook County · IL
Homes for sale in
Little Italy, UIC.
- Active listings
- 9
- Median list
- $350K
- Avg time on market
- 56 days
- Sold · last year
- 0
About the community
Living in Little Italy, UIC.
Little Italy sits on Chicago's Near West Side, wrapped around the University of Illinois Chicago and bounded by Ashland Avenue on the west, Interstate 90/94 on the east, the Eisenhower Expressway on the north, and Roosevelt Road on the south. Its spine is Taylor Street, the historic port of call for Chicago's Italian immigrants and still the neighborhood's dining and social heart, often packaged together with University Village under one neighborhood banner. The housing stock is a layered mix: surviving brick two-flats and greystones, a heavy wave of 1990s and 2000s condos and townhouses, and the newer Roosevelt Square redevelopment that replaced the demolished ABLA public-housing complex. Once overwhelmingly Italian American, the area is now genuinely mixed, shaped by immigration, urban renewal, gentrification, and a growing UIC student and faculty population. For buyers, the appeal is location and walkability, with a Walk Score of 88 and a Transit Score of 72, multiple CTA stations, and a short hop to the Loop. The trade-offs are a dense, student-heavy rental market, limited single-family inventory, and Cook County taxes. You buy here for proximity, transit, and old-Chicago character rather than for quiet suburban space.
At a glance
Near West Side
Little Italy sits on Chicago's Near West Side, bounded by Ashland on the west, I-90/94 on the east, the Eisenhower Expressway on the north, and Roosevelt Road on the south.
University anchor
The University of Illinois Chicago wraps the neighborhood and enrolled 33,906 students in fall 2024, the second-largest figure in the university's history.
Highly walkable
The neighborhood carries a Walk Score of 88, a Transit Score of 72, and a Bike Score of 94, making it strongly walkable and bike-friendly.
Condo-heavy market
Inventory skews to condos and townhomes, with a median home sale price around $353,000 in late 2025, up roughly 7 percent year over year.
Taylor Street dining
Taylor Street is the heart of Little Italy, lined with Italian eateries, bakeries, and bars, including Mario's Italian Lemonade, a summer institution since 1954.
Young and mixed
The University Village and Little Italy area holds roughly 15,000 people with a median age near 32, reflecting the student and young-professional skew.
Multiple CTA stops
The CTA Blue Line stops at UIC-Halsted and Racine while the Pink Line serves the Polk station at the edge of the neighborhood.
Historic churches
Landmark Roman Catholic churches remain here, including the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, established as an Italian national parish in 1911.
What it’s actually like to live here
Daily life still revolves around Taylor Street, which runs from Ashland east toward Halsted and is lined with Italian restaurants, bakeries, and bars. Warm-weather rituals include Mario's Italian Lemonade at 1068 W. Taylor Street, a hand-made institution operating since 1954 that typically opens in May and closes in September. The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, run by UIC in the original National Historic Landmark home, keeps the neighborhood's reform history publicly accessible, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii anchors its Italian Catholic heritage. The resident mix is distinctive, blending longtime Italian American families, a large and rotating UIC student body, faculty, medical workers from the adjacent Illinois Medical District, and young professionals drawn by the location.
Getting around is easy without a car. The CTA Blue Line at UIC-Halsted and Racine and the Pink Line at Polk put the Loop within a short ride, and the area's high Walk and Bike Scores support errands and commuting on foot or by bike. Green space includes Arrigo Park at 801 S. Loomis Street, a neighborhood park and gathering spot. The overall feel is dense, urban, and energetic rather than quiet, with the rhythm of a campus neighborhood layered over an old-Chicago Italian core.
Neighborhoods
Detailed Little Italy, UIC community pages coming soon.
Browse the listings above. Detailed neighborhood pages with market stats, school info, and lifestyle take-downs land here as we roll them out.
Around town
What there is to do in Little Italy, UIC.
A handful of the places people who live here actually use. Not a directory.
- Culture
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
The original 1856 Hull Home, now a UIC-run museum and National Historic Landmark memorializing Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams and the settlement-house movement.
- Landmark
Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii
One of the oldest Italian American Roman Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago, established as a parish in 1911 and recently reopened after a major restoration.
- Dining
Mario's Italian Lemonade
A seasonal Taylor Street institution at 1068 W. Taylor Street serving hand-made Italian ice since 1954, open roughly May through September.
- Parks
Arrigo Park
A neighborhood green space at 801 S. Loomis Street in the heart of Little Italy, long a gathering spot for residents and festivals.
- Dining
Taylor Street dining corridor
The neighborhood's restaurant-and-bakery spine, the historic core of Chicago's Italian dining scene and still its social heart.
- Sports
Credit Union 1 Arena at UIC
UIC's on-campus event and sports arena, served directly by the CTA Blue Line Racine station at the edge of the neighborhood.
How Little Italy, UIC got here
A bit of history.
Italians began arriving in Chicago in the 1850s, and the Taylor Street area grew into the city's largest Italian enclave, with the foreign-born Italian population climbing from about 16,000 in 1900 to nearly 74,000 by 1930. In 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House at 800 South Halsted Street, in the middle of a dense immigrant neighborhood of Italians, Greeks, and Jews, and the area became known as the Hull House Neighborhood. Hull House grew to 13 buildings by 1911 and became the national model for the settlement-house movement, offering day care, an employment bureau, libraries, and English and citizenship classes.
The neighborhood was reshaped by mid-20th-century urban renewal. Construction of the Eisenhower Expressway and, in the 1960s, Mayor Richard J. Daley's decision to build the UIC Circle Campus tore through Little Italy. During construction of the roughly 100-acre campus, about 200 businesses and 800 homes were bulldozed and an estimated 5,000 residents were displaced. Activist Florence Scala fought the project before losing in the courts, and Hull House closed at its original site in 1963. Later, the Chicago Housing Authority's ABLA developments were demolished in the early 2000s and are being rebuilt as the mixed-income Roosevelt Square.
The questions buyers actually ask
Little Italy, UIC FAQ
The questions I get most from buyers shopping Little Italy, UIC. If yours isn't here, text 815-355-0582, same-day reply.
- What kinds of homes can I actually buy in Little Italy and University Village?
- The market is condo and townhome heavy, with a layer of older brick two-flats and greystones plus newer construction from the 1990s onward, including the Roosevelt Square redevelopment of the former ABLA public-housing site. Single-family detached homes exist but are a smaller share of inventory, so most buyers are choosing among condos and townhomes.
- What do prices look like right now?
- As of late 2025, the median home sale price in Little Italy was around $353,000, up roughly 7 percent year over year, with homes selling close to list price. Condos make up a large share of available inventory, so the entry point depends heavily on unit size and building amenities.
- How close is it to downtown and the Loop, and how good is transit?
- Very close and very transit-rich. The CTA Blue Line stops at UIC-Halsted and Racine and the Pink Line stops at Polk, all putting the Loop within a short ride, and the neighborhood scores 72 on Transit and 88 on Walk Score. Many residents live here car-free.
- How does living next to UIC affect buyers?
- UIC is a massive anchor, with 33,906 students enrolled in fall 2024, so the surrounding market carries strong rental demand and a student-and-faculty population. That supports condo and townhome values but also means a denser, more transient rental mix than a typical residential neighborhood.
- What makes it distinct from neighboring areas?
- Little Italy is the historic Taylor Street Italian enclave layered over a major university campus and bordered by the Illinois Medical District. That blend of old-Chicago Italian dining and landmarks, campus energy, and medical-district employment is something nearby West Loop or Pilsen do not replicate.
- What about property taxes and the cost trade-offs?
- Homes here are in Cook County, which administers property assessment and taxation for the area, so buyers should budget for Cook County property taxes on top of purchase price. The core trade-off is paying for location, transit, and walkability rather than for space, with limited single-family supply and a dense urban setting.
Your local agent
Joe knows Little Italy, UIC
Most agents will list anything. I focus on the places I actually know, and the things that move value here don't show up in the MLS write-up: which streets and buildings hold demand, what the HOA or assessments really cover, how the comps read once you account for condition and location, and where buyers consistently want to be.
When you're ready to tour or list, you want someone who has read the last 50 closed comps in this specific market, not a national average, and can tell you what they actually mean for your price. That's how I work. Text or call any time, and I'll give you a real take, not a brochure.
- Licensed Illinois broker
- Comp-driven pricing
- Little Italy, UIC specialist
- Honest local market take
- Brokerocity
Thinking of selling?
What's your home actually worth?
Not a Zestimate. A real CMA from someone who's sold this neighborhood, knows the floor plan premiums, and can tell you which upgrades the buyer pool here actually pays for.
- Pricing range with comp-by-comp logic
- Pre-list improvements that pay back, and the ones that don't
- No obligation, no spam, no auto-dialer