Sedgwick Properties, the failed developer of the prime Lake and Lathrop site in River Forest, is playing the victim card. This firm, with its tight ties to local power, is again suing the village of River Forest with a preposterous claim that it has been ill-treated.
Nonsense and pathetic.
River Forest’s village government has been ridiculously generous with the many extensions it offered Marty Paris’ development firm. Bad economy. COVID. Supply chain woes. We heard it all from Paris as he made one excuse after another to explain why he never managed to do more than pile a few cinder blocks together on a prime corner meant to be home to a four-story, 22-unit luxury condo and fancy restaurant project.
Paris blames everyone but himself for the now almost-decade-long debacle at Lake and Lathrop.
Currently, Paris claims the village owes him a new building permit. Seems to us that when your bank files a foreclosure suit for contract violations and demands its $4.2 million back, when the court appoints a receiver to maintain and then sell the property, that we are officially past the point when the village can say, “Sure, Marty, let’s start fresh.”
Paris, in an earlier suit, already derailed plans by the receiver who had solicited bids for the site and turned up a livewire in Michigan Avenue Real Estate, the Jerry Reinsdorf firm. Reinsdorf, who runs a lousy baseball team but actually builds successful apartment projects, bid $3.75 million for the property.
It’s past time for Paris to take his lumps on this failed project and let River Forest get on with a worthy project at this too-long-vacant corner.