It was one step forward and two steps back at the January 8 meeting of the Community Development Commission, the mayorally appointed board that oversees the city’s tax increment financing districts. The good news is that a bigger crowd than usual—several dozen residents—showed up to protest the latest boondoggles. The bad news is that the CDC approved them anyway, including the second-largest TIF handout in the history of the program: $75 million to help Rush University Medical Center rebuild and expand its hospital campus.
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The CDC also recommended giving $8.5 million to Grossinger Auto Group to help build a car dealership in the vacant Expo Design Center near the congested intersection of North, Halsted, and Clybourn. Lobbyist Terry Teele, a former deputy chief of staff for Mayor Daley, was so persuasive on Grossinger’s behalf that the CDC recommended making the site itself a TIF district, the Weed/Fremont TIF, with funds to be devoted exclusively to the project. No one from the city’s environmental department felt compelled to explain why the city would want to subsidize a multimillion-dollar auto dealership when it can’t find funds to alleviate the CTA meltdown. And no one from the planning department bothered to explain why one of the north side’s hottest real estate markets, where privately financed development fills almost every lot, merits a subsidy intended to eradicate blight.
The Rush subsidy comes out of the Central West TIF. Roughly bounded by Western Avenue on the west, Racine on the east, Lake on the north, and the Eisenhower on the south, this district was never intended to raise funds for Rush—the medical center isn’t even in it. When the TIF was created back in 2000, the city promised to spend up to $98 million on neighborhood schools, parks, and commercial development. Now, in order to underwrite the medical center, the city wants to extend the district south of the Eisenhower so it includes the Rush campus. It’s also pushing to raise the ceiling on the TIF to $250 million.
In the case of the Central West TIF, the gift will continue giving for some time. Remember, the city’s proposing to lift its ceiling to $250 million. After you take away Rush’s $75 million and the $98 million originally committed, that leaves another $77 million for the city to spend. My bet is that it will go to refurbishing the old Cook County Hospital. The planning department’s mapmakers made sure the old hospital was included in the district’s newly expanded boundaries—and there’s usually a reason, stated or not, for the way they draw the maps.
Caucusers patiently waited in line to show registrars their IDs so they could enter the hall. In Chicago dozens of sharpie lawyers would scrutinize the signatures of rival caucusers, moving to disqualify them on the grounds that their signatures at the door failed to match the signatures on their voter registration cards.
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