The Village of Oak Park is expected to pay up to $7.5 million for the Colt building and another building across the street, 1145 Westgate, representing the culmination of a put/call purchase agreement stretching back to 2001.
The Colt building is just east of Pier 1 Imports, and home to Crafts By Diane, the UPS Store and GNC (on the Lake Street side).
In a joint statement Friday, Focus Development/Taxman Corp., co-owners of the Colt, asked the village to close on the sale of the properties by Feb. 28. The purchase agreement between the developers and the village, which set a $5 million sale price for the Colt, will expire on that date. Village President David Pope said Monday that the price of the other property has not been approved by the board.
The companies stated they were “disappointed” that the board rejected their proposal to be the exclusive developers for the downtown superblock after having invested time and effort into making development proposals that would “enhance the growth of existing businesses, stimulate new investment, expand the tax base for the benefit of local schools and taxing districts, and contribute to the quality of life.
“The Board of Trustees has instead decided to move the process in the other direction, one that will cost the Village of Oak Park millions of dollars to execute and result in millions more in lost tax revenue and economic activity.”
Superblock plan not embraced
Last fall, the village charged a steering committee with returning a recommended plan for the downtown superblock area, bounded by Lake Street, Forest Avenue, North Boulevard and Harlem Avenue. The steering committee found that preserving the Colt would be too expensive, and preferred to sacrifice it to save other, more historically significant buildings on Westgate.
Redevelopment of the Shops of Downtown Oak Park (from Pier 1 west to the Gap and south to TGI Friday’s) were part of negotiations between the village and the developers since last summer, Pope said.
But when the village learned in December or January of Taxman Corp.’s intention to sell the Shops, it rubbed some trustees the wrong way. The sale would not only complicate negotiations, but some trustees lost faith in Taxman Corp. for informing the village of the sale so near the intended closing date in late January.
Trustee Greg Marsey said he and others thought withholding that information led them to wonder what else Taxman wasn’t telling them.
“If you’re not getting the full story, it makes you wonder if the other side is equally willing to be a partner,” Marsey said.
Marsey, Pope, and Trustee Ray Johnson were against purchasing and restoring the Colt. Pope and Johnson were elected as trustees on a VMA (Village Manager Association) slate, and Pope was later elected as president as an Independent. Marsey and the remaining trustees are linked to the NLC (New Leadership Coalition).
The issue proved divisive on the board, with a single vote separating the sides.
“Frankly, this is an unheard-of action in the village of Oak Park,” said Johnson, who sees the move as issuing a “blank check” for historic preservation. “When I heard ‘History Matters,’ I didn’t realize they meant ‘at all costs.'”
Johnson said the purchase will put the village at risk, as the economic climate could change before the village is able to redevelop or resell the properties. Plus, consultants have told the village that reconstruction costs on the Colt could reach $6 million, and revenues from the Colt will decline if the middle in-fill portion were removed and space taken for new elevators.
“I don’t know where this is going,” Johnson said. “I’ve asked the question, and you don’t get an answer; you get blank stares.”
Critical of the purchase
Debate over the Colt’s fate has also pitted community members intent on preserving it on one side against business and economic development proponents on other. However, not all preservationists saw the Colt as deserving restoration, including preservationists sitting on the steering committee who voted in favor of tearing it down.
“It would be fairer to say that trustees [Robert] Milstein, [Elizabeth] Brady, [Martha] Brock and [Geoff] Baker only listened to the few extremists in the NLP,” Ed Baehrend, owner of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Arthur Heurtley House said in an e-mail message. “They did not listen to the majority of Oak Park citizens or members of their own party.”
Community criticism of the move followed shortly after the sale of the Colt was announced last week.
Jon Hale, of Forum Oak Park, called the decision to purchase the buildings “irresponsible,” and wondered “why anyone else would bother to participate in another lengthy process” as outlined in the village’s new participatory planning process when a major point of the steering committee’s recommendation was set aside.
The decision “gives greater weight to the historical preservation of a marginal building than to the needs of our community,” according to a statement from the Business and Civic Council. “Rebuilding the Colt building would represent the manifestation of a dogmatic, single-minded focus on historical preservation at any cost.”
But the board has not committed to restoring the Colt. It will issue a Request for Proposals to architecture firms to get a market price for rehabbing the building. Pope said the board would walk away from restoration if it proves to be too costly, although no parameters have been set to define how much is too much.
The board will review options and a possible timeline for other downtown projects (parking garage, opening Marion Street, etc.) at a Feb. 21 meeting. The 1145 Westgate building?#34;located across Westgate from the Colt and across a parking lot to the west from Old Navy?#34;would “factor heavily” into how the footprint of a proposed parking garage on North Boulevard might look, Marsey said.
All agreed that the process should move quickly. Pope did not know how long the Colt RFP process might take.
Pope said the new 10-step participatory planning process will be used in issuing the RFP, but said it “need not be burdensome or consume an inordinate amount of time.” The planning resolution was approved at a meeting last week with last-minute changes. The village had not produced a copy of the final resolution by press time.
The superblock area lies within a tax increment financing (TIF) district, which sets aside a portion of taxes for development incentives, infrastructure improvements or other expenses defined by law. The downtown TIF had a $12.8 million balance at the beginning of the year, with another $5 million expected in revenues this year. Bonds backed by sales taxes could be sold for more capital, too.
During the steering committee’s meetings, one estimate on building a North Boulevard parking garage pegged the cost of a 600-car structure at $14 million.
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com