At recent annual meetings, Oak Park Development Corp. Chair Martin Noll has expressed some frustration over what was growing tension between the village and its partner agency.
But this year, after stepped-up conversations with the village and a new OPDC strategic plan approved by its board in January, Noll talked about what’s ahead.
“The staff has heard me call OPDC ‘Oak Park’s quiet company,'” Noll said. “Well, look for us to market Oak Park and ourselves into the ‘not-so-quiet company.'”
Noll said the strategic plan contains “much that is easily recognizable” to OPDC’s mission in the past. However, “new initiatives abound.”
At the core of its expanding role is how it functions as a “trusted advisor” to the village. On the OPDC board are representatives of 10 banks, each with customers “in the development business,” working every day on projects like those underway in and planned for Oak Park.
“OPDC’s board represents financial underwriting capability, loan making and collecting ability, financial services delivery, and transactional processing ability,” Noll said. “We’ll catalog those services and put them on call.”
All of the services would be free to the village.
OPDC would not disclose its strategic plan to Wednesday Journal, citing “finishing touches” needed before its release.
Timed closely with the village’s termination of a put/call purchase agreement with developers on the Colt Building, 1125-1135 Lake St., the adoption of the strategic plan put OPDC in the position to handle financing of the Colt purchase.
Selling short-term bonds (maturity is in less than four years) for $5 million is unusual, and might be balked at in the private bond market, said Greg Peters, village director of finance. That’s where a negotiated sale with hometown banks makes a lot of sense: any uncertainty created by issuing bonds not backed by sales tax revenues is wiped away because local banks know the village’s ability to repay bonds, Peters said.
For most “vanilla” bond sales, such as a recent one to fund the public works facility construction, are better handled on the open market, Peters said, where competition ensures the best rates. Local banks would not keep the bonds in their portfolios anyway, Peters said.
OPDC member banks are ready to raise additional money to fund purchase of the 1145 Westgate building, if the village board decides to purchase it from developers.
Noll said that the New Leadership Party ran, in part, on a platform of greater use of community resources. “OPDC is and has those very important resources,” Noll said.
He said OPDC members have stepped up their support by 20 percent. “Don’t be surprised to see us eventually in new quarters with some new faces added to our staff,” Noll said. OPDC is funded roughly 55 percent by the village, 45 percent by private companies. It makes its home in a rent-free 700-square-foot office space at US Bank, 104 N. Oak Park Ave.
Other initiatives include helping establish a Maywood Development Corp., something that will add consulting dollars to OPDC’s bottom line. And, Noll said OPDC will be “part of establishing a meaningful and focused business retention program, especially for our gateway areas.”
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com
