Ferd Kramer, now president of Draper and Kramer, began work on resurrecting the city’s deteriorating South Side through a 70-acre mixed-use lakefront development called Lake Meadows, which would eventually become the nation’s model for urban renewal. Draper and Kramer served as adviser on the development and was its original property manager before ultimately acquiring the community in the 1980s. The firm still owns and manages Lake Meadows today.
