The remaking of Roosevelt Road through Oak Park, Berwyn and a portion of Cicero is a notable accomplishment, marked last week when Gov. Pat Quinn and a gaggle of state and local officials gathered to cut the proverbial ribbon.
Quinn had his purpose which was to sell the assembled media on the state’s infrastructure-funding efforts. And he earned the right to hijack this local event by dint of the state having corralled a large portion of the millions in funding necessary to put a snazzy streetscaping veneer over the coarse reality of much of Roosevelt Road.
But now the guv is gone and that leaves us to take a hard look at this street. We ponder the fact that both sides of the street now have the same benches, lights and wrought iron finery but only the Berwyn side has sparks indicating the excising of blight, new development, and the ka-ching of new tax revenues. We wonder why several of the street’s most notable hot spots are owned by Oak Parkers, who all chose the south side of Roosevelt for their businesses.
FitzGerald’s, Autre Monde are well-established successes. Wired is an interesting music venue and school concept currently under construction. And we’ll never quite get why Wishbone wasn’t more successful snuggled in next to FitzGerald’s. All are businesses located in Berwyn and owned by Oak Parkers.
Two likely reasons explain the puzzlement:
First, Berwyn has a TIF. Oak Park doesn’t. Sure TIFs get grief. But if there is a blighted area in Oak Park that meets every definition of what a TIF is meant to fix, Roosevelt Road is it. Berwyn was farsighted enough to establish a TIF district on Roosevelt so that when the value of the street rose that it would have funding to spur specific projects that beget other new projects.
Second, the Berwyn Development Association (BDA) is a superior economic development model to the mixed bag of turf fights that Oak Park lumbers along with. Part village agency, part private partnership, part Chamber of Commerce marketing arm, the BDA is working faster and smarter than Oak Park. Everyone knows Oak Park is challenged in this area. No one tackles it head on.
The comparison is stark.