I have to admit I was a little intimidated before my interview with Connie Abels. She is a powerful mover and shaker in Rogers Park for the past twenty years. As owner of RE/MAX NorthCoast Realty on Morse Ave. and active on many neighborhood boards she plays a strong role in the redevelopment and revitalization of Rogers Park. Connie told me, "I love Rogers Park because of the passion of the people here."

During the interview Connie’s enthusiasm and passion for what she does and the neighborhood was very apparent and infectious. I also don’t know when I have laughed more during an interview. Thanks Connie!

Connie described her journey from being the first graduate of Oak Forest High School, a new bride and manager of thirteen six flats at nineteen years old, to a single mom working with a baby on her back, dealing with cockroaches and gang-bangers, to a newbie in the real estate business to being the power-house that she is today.

"It hasn’t been easy. I have had to learn the hard way," Connie said reflecting on her twenty years in real estate in Rogers Park. When I started out, I didn’t have experience, education or any money. I started my business and bought a copier. I had good friends (mentors) who taught me what they knew and the rest I learned under fire, sometimes literally."

Connie made Rogers Park home twenty-seven years ago with her baby daughter Kimberly.

"I moved to Rogers Park twenty-seven years ago when I left my husband. I was twenty-four years old. Rogers Park has offered a home that is never boring. I found community and a job at the old Rogers Park Hotel on Pratt and Sheridan. It was built in the 1920s with War bonds and at that time was still owned by the original family. The owner wanted to turn his hotel into a regular apartment building. He hired me to manage the building and renovate the building. My daughter grew with multiple grandparents with all the seniors in the building adopting us. We were there from 1980-1989. I also started my real estate business in the building in 1987. Living and working there was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I learned real estate and renovation and found community."

"When I opened my business in 1987, I had never sold a property before", Abels said. "The first property I ever showed for sale was listed at $1.5 million. The first property I listed and sold as a broker was a courtyard building at Leland & Manor for $450,000. Most people start by selling condos. Not me, I just jumped right in!" By 1988, I was looking for other office space. I found a house on Sheridan Rd and convinced the owners to rent it to me and I bought it a year later. I lived above my office. It was good situation for raising my daughter."

Connie said she is most proud of her daughter.

"Kimberley is twenty­eight years old and teaches at a mission school in Manila, Philippines. She teaches fifth graders. She did a great job of raising herself. Running a business and working 14-20 hours a day, I wasn’t around much." After twenty years, she is still putting in twelve ­sixteen hour days. "I couldn’t do what I do without the continuing support of my terrific staff of sales agents and friends".

Connie would like to see Rogers Park continue to evolve with a wide variety of commercial businesses and choices of shops so that not only will Rogers Parkers do business and shop in our community, but it will be a destination community for others to want to live and do business here. She would like to see the lakefront offer more recreation activities and blooming flowers in the park would be wonderful. Connie hopes that Rogers Park will continue to grow while still retaining its charm and multiplicity. This includes growth culturally and ethnically with vibrant commercial options, and with both affordable and market rate housing.

"The renovations of the properties along with the new construction needed to happen. Buildings were in disrepair and it was not financially feasible for landlords to make the needed repairs. With the extreme increases in utilities, insurance and taxes, landlords could not make the repairs and maintain affordable rental units anyway. I know this is difficult to understand accept. Because of this, blocks north of Howard, or along the Damen/Howard corridor are now desirable condominiums with first time homeowners. These are no longer blighted blocks." Abels walks her talk. She developed the first condo conversion north of Howard in 1996-97 and lived on Damen/Birchwood for 10 years in a building she bought in 1996 and developed. "When I bought the building 10 years ago, it was the borderline for the Latin Kings and the Gang Disciples. Now Damen, Birchwood, Seeley, Fargo and Hoyne, are all lined with new condominium homes and owners. Ownership stabilizes a community." This ownership stabilization has been beneficial throughout Rogers Park.

Abels has been a long time director with the Rogers Park Community Council and is a director of the RPCC Community Development Corp. She is a charter member of the Rogers Park Builders Group, a new commissioner of the Morse Ave SSA, a member of DevCorp North, a Paul Harris Fellow member of Rotary-Chicago Far North, Lifetime member of the Rogers Park Historical Society, and Lifetime Member of Rogers Park Friends of the Library. She has served on a multitude of committees over the past 20 years.

"There is no other place in the world like Rogers Park, USA. We have the parks and lakefront, gorgeous architecture and incredibly passionate people here. Nothing ever stays the same. Things have gotten better here in Rogers Park over the last twenty-seven years and it can get even better. I would like to think I can help."

You can contact Connie Abels at RE/MAX NorthCoast Realty
1225 W. Morse Ave, Suite 100, Chicago, IL 60626
773.353.9180, fax: 773.353.9180, e-mail: c.abels@remax.net
www.rogersparkcondos.com.