City funds will cover part of the cost of a new parking ramp for the site of Evanston’s tallest building, reversing a 2005 decision not to fund the ramp. The 7-2 City Council vote Tuesday came almost three years after developer Golub & Company first presented plans to revamp the Chase Building, 1603 Orrington Ave., its aging plaza and its ramp, which runs parallel to the street.
About 40 percent of the ramp’s $3.05 million relocation cost will be paid by the city after construction is complete. The relocation is only part of a broader scheme to revamp the site, which houses the 277-foot Chase Building, a banking rotunda and a 31,000-square foot retail building on the property’s northern edge that has been vacant since Borders moved out in 2003. Golub & Company hopes to attract new tenants to the empty space by adding new retail structures at the site’s southern edge, connecting the tower to the northern retail building with a land bridge and adding a 24-space parking lot along the alley on the lot’s eastern edge.
The city funding will be split between tax increment finance (TIF) district money and expected sales-tax income from the new retail – options which were available to aldermen during their 2005 deliberations. Tax increment financing districts channel property tax revenues into a fund used for improving streets and sidewalks, as well as encouraging development, so long as they are within the district. The site’s TIF district had an end-of-year balance of $5,666,948 in 2007, versus $30,672,486 in 2005 when aldermen declined to finance the ramp cost.
“It’s probably not a bad idea to move the ramp,” said Ald. Edmund Moran (6th), one of two aldermen to oppose funding the ramp relocation. “But they didn’t ask for it to begin with, and I don’t think they’ve made a case that they need it.”
Moran said he would prefer to use the funds to further renovate Fountain Square across the street. Other aldermen said revamping the Chase Building’s barren, windswept plaza and its parking ramp, which is parallel to the street, would revitalize the Orrington retail corridor.
“The intent of that TIF is to be used for things such as this,” said Jonathan Perman, executive director of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce. “There’s one caveat to that – that but for this assistance, the development proposed wouldn’t happen.”
Moran said Golub & Company hadn’t proved that and noted that the developers had initially asked for $750,000 in 2005 and had decided to proceed even though the city denied them the funding.
Getting the city to underwrite part of the cost came after multiple construction delays and a change in the building’s ownership. It remains managed by the same company, and the redevelopment plans did not change.
In April 2007, developers asked the city if it could put the ramp relocation and land-bridge plans on hold while continuing with the new retail buildings, arguing they could no longer afford the cost of relocating the ramp. Aldermen resisted that effort, but construction did not begin. Later in the year, as the project neared deadline, developers first floated the idea of the city underwriting the cost of moving the ramp. But in the interim, developers had approached city staff about revamping the plan. Aldermen again resisted financing the ramp relocation, but extended the deadline again, this time to April 2008. Ultimately, aldermen were faced with funding the ramp or seeing only half of the project – the retail at the southern edge – built, according to minutes from meetings.
“The city’s record on using TIF financing for doing new development and building new infrastructure has been fantastic,” Perman said. “It’s worked pretty well here.”
