Chicago’s Community Development Commission this week recommended giving more than $9 million toward the restoration of the Carson Pirie Scott Building’s celebrated iron façade. A Chicago developer wants the city to help save the storefront because of rising costs. For Chicago Public Radio, Blair Chavis reports.
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Chicago’s cultural historian Tim Samuelson stands at the corner of State and Madison.
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He’s facing the world famous Carson Pirie Scott building designed by architect Louis Sullivan more than a hundred years ago.
SAMUELSON: People come from all over to see the Carson Pirie Scott store because it’s really a dynamic building. It’s a modern building, yet at the same time, it’s a very human building. It’s something that can appeal to people, yet at the same time appeals to the logic and order of what good architecture is all about.
Samuelson says even for those who aren’t architecture buffs, the building has an appeal.
SAMUELSON: Actually even in the case of this department store, it even kind of seductively said, ‘Come in. Come in. Come in.’
The development company renovating the building,Joseph Freed and Associates, purchased it in 2001 with the goal to use it later for office and retail. The city has already contributed more than 14 million dollars toward the project, and the company has spent nearly 200 million altogether. So additional city money would bring the total government contribution to over 23 million dollars. But Freed and Associates vice president Paul Fitzpatrick says the company needs the money-specifically-to help preserve the historic iron façade.
FITZPATRICK: Our agreement with the city, the funds are appropriated for very specific things that we can use that for, and it’s monitored by the city, by the planning department, and other members of the community. So, it’s not a blank check that you get from the city and they just hope you finish the project.
Fitzpatrick says the company spent a majority of the previously allotted tax money on land acquisition and cornice repair. Lori Bush is a project manager with Chicago’s department of planning. She explained to the city’s Community Development Commission earlier this week that this iron project exceeds what a developer should have to pay.
BUSH: Throughout the cast iron ornamentation water damage and corrosion over time is resulting in the loss of ornament, displacement, fastener failure and cracking pieces. The cast iron facade rehab would not be financially viable without TIF assistance.
TIF, or tax increment financing, collects money for economic development in a specific area: to help fund projects like revitalizing blighted areas, funding public housing or schools or restoring buildings. At the time a TIF is established, the city locks in a value for all the properties within the TIF area; the taxes on that assessed value continue to go to the government. But any additional taxes that result from a rise in property value go to a fund that can only be used for specific improvements within the TIF district. There’s little transparency in terms of how the money is actually used…says Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley. Earlier this year, Quigley issued a report evaluating TIF accountability.
QUIGLEY: They budget a certain amount the TIF collects, and usually it collects a lot more and they don’t return the surplus. And they can pretty much amend the plan any time they want to. None of the money runs through the city budget and none of the money is put on the people’s property tax bill, and there’s absolutely no assessment of its effectiveness.
Quigley says it’s essential in a democracy to ask how tax dollars are being spent. What this debate over money really comes down to is preserving a piece of ironwork. And Tim Samuelson says that’s important because there aren’t many of Sullivan’s buildings left in Chicago…and several of them have been already torn down or destroyed.
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Samuelson says the Carson Pirie Scott building is one worth saving.
SAMUELSON: In restoring this building, you are really restoring what would be one of the definitive works of Louis Sullivan, where somebody can come look at it and really understand what Sullivan’s about.
Chicago’s planning department still doesn’t know when the City Council will review and vote on the proposed TIF amendment. The developer says it’s ready to restore the iron work as soon as the city acts.
For Chicago Public Radio, I’m Blair Chavis.