What a giveaway! Oak Parkers I’ve talked to are justifiably incensed over the village board’s impending $2,000,000 reward to the owners of the old Marshall Field building for deferring maintenance on the building since Borders left it 14 years ago.
Based on what Wednesday Journal reported, it appears that the owners of the building who have not kept it up to spec — or possibly village code — for so long are about to gouge Oak Park taxpayers for as much as $2 million in sales tax revenue that should go to the village over the next 20 years. If the owner needs to spend $4 million on renovations, it looks like it has likely been caused, at least in part, by the owner deferring maintenance for more than a decade. Folks are asking why should Oak Park taxpayers have to reward such ill behavior by paying for half of those expenses?
Of course there is no guarantee that Barnes & Noble will even remain at this location for 20 years. While the Oak Park Borders and River Forest’s Books a Million (in what is now the Town Centre) were allegedly among the chains’ highest grossing stores, they still folded.
I can appreciate how village leaders may want to see the site occupied and at least some sales tax revenue and higher property taxes generated. While it’s not uncommon to provide some sort of subsidy to private-sector businesses — after all, the American credo has long been “socialism for the wealthy, capitalism for the poor (and middle class)” — it’s more than a bit dubious to subsidize a landlord who has let a building deteriorate like this.
There are a lot of unknowns here that warrant candid answers:
Will the building owner refuse to rent to Barnes & Noble if the village does not pay it off with forthcoming taxpayer funds?
Does the building owner find it more financially beneficial to keep the building vacant without getting the village to cover half its renovation costs?
Is the village being extorted — give us the taxpayers’ money or we won’t rent to Barnes & Noble?
The owners have let this magnificent building become an eyesore. Folks cannot help but wonder whether the owner is being rewarded for failing to maintain the building by taking from the village and its taxpayers as much as $2 million they rightfully deserve.
Daniel Lauber
Oak Park senior planner 1977–1979
River Forest