After nearly five months of often contentious negotiations, the River Forest Civic Center Authority and the River Forest Community Center have agreed on a new four year lease that keeps the Community Center in the River Forest Civic Center building located at 8020 Madison St. but will give the Civic Center Authority control of the building as the landlord. The new lease will supersede an existing lease that was to terminate in 2028.
This spring the Civic Center Authority, the legal entity that owns the Civic Center building, had threatened to terminate the Community Center’s lease leading to something close to panic among some families that have kids in the Community Center’s highly regarded childcare program.
The Civic Center Authority Board of Managers, which has, by law, the same make up as the River Forest Township Board, unanimously approved the new lease on Dec. 16. The Community Center board of directors approved the lease two days later on Dec. 18. The new lease runs until Dec 31, 2029.
“We’re very pleased to have an agreement,” said River Forest Township Supervisor John Becvar, who also serves on the Civic Center Board of Managers. “It allows us to move forward on a variety of things including, but not limited to, really discussing what the future of the building is. The agreement itself doesn’t solve the finances of the building.”
Becvar says the building will need an infusion of cash in coming years to replace its roof and failing HVAC system and other mechanical systems.
The Community Center runs a popular childcare program in the building and has been the main tenant since the building, which was built in 1955 for Laidlaw Publishing, become publicly owned around 1990. In an unusual arrangement the Community Center rented out much of the second floor of the building and paid for most utilities and maintenance. Becvar wanted to end that and make it clear that the Civic Center Authority Board of Managers was the landlord and the Community Center was the tenant.
Starting in January the Community Center will cede control of the second floor in the two-story red brick building. The Community Center’s rent will initially decrease to $7,696 a quarter or $1.80 per square foot. That’s about half of the rent it had been paying but the Community Center henceforth only controls about 58 percent of the building, down from 94 percent and will no longer be subleasing any space to other organizations as it has been for decades.
The Civic Center Authority will now collect rent from other users of the building such as River Forest Township, Opportunity Knocks, CAYR Connection and Oak Park Township. Those tenants will pay $15.40 a square foot in rent to the Civic Center Authority for the space they use on the building’s second floor. Becvar said that Community Center’s low rent until 2028 is a result of carrying forward the terms of the pre-existing lease that ran until 2028.
The Civic Center Authority Board started the controversy this spring by threatening to terminate that lease claiming, among other things, that the Community Center had violated its terms by not getting its subleasing arrangements preapproved by the Civic Center Authority. Becvar said that contrary to what some thought the Civic Center Authority never took any legal steps to evict the Community Center from the building.
“We sent them one letter and that caused all this brouhaha,” Becvar said.
On July 1, 2028 the Community Center’s rent will jump to $68,245 a quarter as it will at that time begin paying the same rent as other tenants, $16.17 a square foot.
“It went way up to the levels the Community Center was charging Opportunity Knocks and the high school in the building adjusted for inflation between now and that future date,” said Becvar of the big jump in the rent the Community Center will begin paying in 2028.
Leslie Farrer, a member of the Community Center’s board and negotiating team, said that she was also relieved that an agreement was reached.
“I am excited for this chapter to be completed,” Farrer said.
But the future spike in rent has caused the Community Center to begin a fundraising campaign, something it didn’t really do in the past as it relied on rent from other organizations that used the building’s second floor as well as fees from families that use its child care program.
“We have been very fortunate for 30 years to be a self-sustaining non-profit with no taxpayer dollars coming into the building so we’ve had the good fortune of not having to focus a lot of our energy on fundraising and grant writing,” Farrer said. “With this new amendment we are having to switch our attention back to kind of what a normal non-profit would do.”
The Community Center has launched a year end fundraising campaign.
“We have made a massive sacrifice by relinquishing the second floor and our ability to rent out that space and use that revenue to subsidize the childcare and keep up with the maintenance of the building,” Farrer said.
Both Becvar and Farrer said that they are now looking to the future.
“We all want the same thing,” Becvar said.
Becvar said that finding the funds to do the necessary work on the 70-year-old building will be a challenge.
“With less than $200,000 of cash liquid assets, and we already have a failing roof and we already have failing mechanicals even replacing one of them is impossible without additional funding,” Becvar said.
But both he and Farrer are hopeful they can put the acrimony of the past few months behind them and work together to keep the building viable in the future.
“We can hopefully put all that past us and work forward on the future so that we can make sure the building can stay open as a vibrant asset for the community for the next, 10, 20, 30 years, that’s our goal,” Becvar said.
Farrer also hopes that the Community Center can remain in the building that has been its home for decades for the foreseeable future.
“I believe that both parties were looking towards the longevity of the building,” Farrer said. “There were difficult conversations trying to make sure that everyone could come out of this with a future.”