By LORRAINE SWANSON
Editor
CLARIFICATION: Ald. Helen Shiller’s office contacted us this morning and asked that we make a clarification on the proposed Wilson Yard TIF amendment. Shiller is proposing increasing the original Wilson Yard TIF budget to $112 million in 2009 dollars. The original TIF budget for Wilson Yard passed in 2001 was approximately $58 million in 2001 dollars. The budget adjustment for $112 million reflects today’s dollars. We regret the confusion.
Ald. Helen Shiller appeared before Uptown Business Partners board members and SSA #34 commissioners seeking their approval for another amendment to the Wilson Yard TIF agreement on Wednesday afternoon.
The alderman is proposing adding another amendment adjusting the original Wilson Yard TIF budget that was passed in 2001 to $112 million in tax dollars and acquisition authority for several properties south of Wilson Avenue.
Ald. Helen Shiller, 46th Ward
Shiller told Uptown Business Partner board members, the neighborhood’s business chamber, that she filed a request for the proposed amendment with the city on July 2. She also met with board members of Uptown United last week. The adjusted budget is based on tax revenue projections from when the Wilson Yard TIF District was established in June 2001.
A Wilson Yard Task Force meeting is scheduled sometime in the next few weeks to discuss the proposed amendment and land acquisition at a date that has yet to be determined.
At the end of the TIF’s life cycle in 2025, the Wilson Yard TIF is expected to generate approximately $144 million in tax revenue. Tax revenue projections from the TIF have doubled since 2001, requiring a budget increase of approximately $112 million in today’s dollars, Shiller said.
Shiller is also seeking acquisition authority to use Wilson Yard TIF funds to acquire three vacant lots on the west side of the 4400 block of Sheridan Road, and the former Salvation Army building at 1025 W. Sunnyside and adjacent lot. The Sheridan Road properties will be developed into parking for businesses east of Broadway. She also wants to turn the former Salvation Army building into a green technology center. Land can be purchased under the state’s TIF laws.
“The lots came from a request from the chamber (Uptown Business Partners) to use TIF money to acquire them for parking,” Shiller said.
She also outlined her plans for a green technology center using agroponics to raise vegetables and fish. Agroponics is an agricultural organic medium that grows vegetables and fruits organically using soilless mediums.
The center would serve as an educational and research incubator for neighborhood schools from pre-school through college, with ground-floor space available for retail. Fish would be raised in the basement and crops grown in greenhouses on the adjacent lot next to the building. Vegetables and fish raised at the center would help stock neighborhood school lunch programs and food pantries.
Shiller said the center will generate jobs and job training for neighborhood residents in green technology. She envisioned the center being owned and operated by a team of non-profit organizations with specific expertise in green technology. She also wants to partner with a South Side non-profit organization to assist in the center. While the idea has not been completely formalized, Shiller plans to hold community planning charrettes.
“I’ve met with 100 people and there is huge interest in this happening,” Shiller said. “The Salvation Army knows we’re interested [in acquiring the property]. This is an idea with a lot of elements to it and people are doing these things.”
The properties will be placed on the city’s acquisition list. After which, the city could exercise its eminent domain powers to purchase them at market value and sell them to private developers. Requests for proposals will be posted on the Chicago Department of Community Development’s web site (formerly the Department of Planning and Development) seeking prospective developers. Attached to the RFPs will be specifications that the Sheridan Road properties be used to develop parking. The process could be over in a matter of months or years.
Shiller did not expect the city to exercise eminent domain powers in acquiring the former Salvation Army building, which is already on the market for $2.3 million, but that it would be placed on the city’s land acquisition list. Properties can remain on the city’s acquisition list for up to three years.
None of the adjusted monies that is being sought will go toward the Wilson Yard retail and housing development at Broadway and Montrose.
“That project is fully funded and closed,” Shiller said.
The proposed TIF amendment will go before the Community Development Commission on July 14 as new business to be placed on a future CDC for a public hearing. Following the CDC’s July meeting, the proposed amendment will be reviewed by the Joint Review Board of the city’s taxing bodies. Shiller expected the Wilson Yard TIF amendment to be placed on the CDC’s September agenda for a hearing that will include public testimony and comment.
Should the amendment gain the CDC’s approval, it will move on to Committee on Finance and eventually go before the full City Council for a vote.
Shiller did not have a copy of the proposed amendment but said it will be available on her web site in the coming weeks.
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Wow. Just wow.
After stating that TIF money might be made available for the Wilson/Lawrence stops, Shiller goes back to the honey pot of the Wilson Yard TIF, ignores the immediate infrastructure needs and goes after another of her pet projects.
Fish and veggies.
Awesome.
More of Shillers lies just like Wilson Yard. Can anyone tell me who will be her running mate as they will get my vote. I am sick of this womens reckless disregard of our Uptown area……….
Can’t some of OUR public dollars go toward OUR public transportation? We need to ask CTA about this and get them on board. If the neighborhood wants it and we have available TIF funds, why should a struggling CTA alone finance its infrastructure improvements at Wilson?
And if you pay property taxes like we do- 65% (!) of those taxes are going to the Wilson Yard, instead of the local schools, police & fire departments. Unbelievable! She will never stop.
Thanks to Lorraine and Uptown Update for posting this. Without you, the taxpayers in Uptown would have no idea what she is up to now. Her communication with the ward is nill. And don’t think for a second that this isn’t another sham that will result in packing in more low income housing in an area that is aleady inudated with it. Wilson Yard was a bad idea, but this new phase is down right stupid.
More NON Profit! More NON Profit! She’s utterly amazing, what a joke….and the parking thing is just killing me. WHO the hell is coming to Uptown to park? So they can shop at a head shop, currency exchange or one of the countless service agencies.
She met with 100 people? Who? This is the first I’ve heard of it. Don’t believe a word this woman says. She lies like there’s no tomorrow. Her initial “plans” always sound so good and palatable to everyone in the community. When she gets the money, that’s when the plans change. I say file a lawsuit right now. Stop her from going any further with the TIF.
If she wants to generate jobs, how come there aren’t a lot (if any) local Uptown unemployed people working on Wiilson Yard and the Truman/CubsNightGames Parking Garage construction? When this question was asked at a Truman meeting the other day, the contractor and others present just hemmed and hawed and said something about Inspiration Cafe. Those two projects should have been planned with scores of Uptown unemployed, unskilled and semi-skilled workers hired. Shiller doesn’t want to create jobs…she wants to build monuments to herself using Uptown property owners’ money.
If the disadvantaged residents of Uptown think she’s doing them a service, they need to think again. Just wait until that WY apartment complex is filled. Where are the jobs for all of those new people coming into Uptown? Where is the money for the schools, parks, playgrounds, public safety going to come from when 68 cents of every property tax dollar goes to Shiller’s pet projects, not to the necessary infrastructure, police and education projects. She’s screwing everyone in Uptown just to try and secure her alderman’s job.
I’m not sure I understand a lot of this, but if this money is not being used for Wilson Yards, why is it being requested under the auspices of the Wilson Yards project? If none of the money is being used for the housing/commercial development, how can it be requested for the project?