<p>A $23.3 million effort to turn an architecturally significant 81-year-old former Altgeld Gardens commercial building into an after-school center has been approved by the Chicago Plan Commission.</p><p>The panel last week approved the By The Hand Club For Kids' project to convert and expand the dilapidated one-story modernist building at 13100 S. Ellis Ave. into a facility with classrooms, a gymnasium and meeting space.</p><p>The development represents quite a potential turnaround for one of the city's less recognized but historically important buildings.</p><p>Designed by noted modernist architects Keck & Keck — and nicknamed the "Up Top" building by Altgeld residents — the distinctive fan-shaped brick structure with an overhanging curved roof was built in 1945 as stores, offices and services for the then-new Far South Side public housing development.</p><p>The building became the birthplace of the environmental justice movement in the 1980s when the late Altgeld resident Hazel Johnson's People for Community Recovery set up shop there.</p><p>The Up Top was granted preliminary city landmark status earlier this month.</p><p>"We just think that there's so much great history in the building, and we know it's something the community wanted us to do," By The Hand Club For Kids Chief of Partnerships and Development Andraya Yousfi said.