yeah, for $1500 you could find a local person (you live in chicago so it's highly likely) to build you a frame (most builders prices i've seen range from $750-$1500ish depending on additional options like: type of steel, paint, lugs, etc), and if you didn't go super fancy on the frame, you'd probably have about $500-$600 left over and you could buy some nice componentry with that.