The village’s proposed purchase of 11 Madison St. for the adaptive reuse of the US Bank building for the police department makes a lot of sense. Yes, it would remove the property from the tax rolls, but it would spare the village the expense of purchasing, demolishing and new construction at any other location in the Madison Street commercial corridor.
What confuses me is the need for “angling” with US Bank over the purchase price [News, Nov. 19]. US Bank has made it obvious that it was abandoning Oak Park. What is this, the fourth location? There has been 109 N. Oak Park, Austin Boulevard & North Avenue, as well as Austin and Roosevelt. Over the years the maintenance inside and outside of each of the four branches has languished with sparse maintenance. In short, they have been a physical symbol of US Bank’s disinvestment in Oak Park, and it is worse in other communities.
US Bank rode into town in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, acquiring Park National Bank. The latter was heralded for its community investments in Chicago and the suburbs, especially Maywood. At that same time, US Bank was one of the leading mortgage foreclosure plaintiffs throughout Cook County. And the shells of many of those properties still hollow out city and suburban neighborhoods, kind of like the US Bank branches in Oak Park.
Not certain of the legal process the village would have to use to condemn 11 Madison and force US Bank’s hand on the purchase price. Can Oak Park utilize its eminent domain powers? At the very least it would force US Bank to negotiate the value, hopefully expediting the process and getting the village a better price.
Chris Donovan
Oak Park