Des Plaines considers redevelopment options

The Des Plaines city council Monday approved a memorandum of understanding with Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, formalizing the city's intent to make it the master developer for the 70-acre Five Corners taxing district.

Forest City likely would redevelop roughly 20 acres of the Five Corners redevelopment area, centered around Rand and River roads. But the developer also may be involved in planning the future redevelopment of the entire district, officials said.

Des Plaines officials have been in talks for more than a year with Forest City about the northern 20 acres of the tax-increment financing district, which currently includes two salvage yards.

A tax-increment financing district - TIF - freezes property tax payments to local governments for up to 23 years. The extra tax revenue collected as the property is developed and increases in value pays off the original improvements.

An official redevelopment agreement with Forest City still is a year away, and the specifics will be tackled by the incoming city council.

City Manager Jason Bajor said since the city is not ready to enter into a redevelopment agreement with Forest City, the letter of intent merely tells the developer the city is serious about working together.

"This is a nonbinding agreement," Bajor said. "We could walk away from this tomorrow."

While the project will be developer-driven, the city will offer incentives largely to pay for environmental cleanup because Brownfield Grants - federal money for environmental cleanups - aren't readily available to private entities, officials said.

A few residents voiced concerns Monday that the agreed letter of intent did not include more details about what would happen to existing businesses and how much money the city would invest for remediating contaminated sites within the TIF district.

The district has been controversial since its inception, because redevelopment would affect existing businesses.

"It looks to me like all of the businesses in the existing area here are going to go away by eminent domain," said Marianne Olson, a Des Plaines resident for 55 years. "I don't know why we can't work with the existing businesses."

Olson said area residents didn't want the Five Corners taxing district in the first place.

City officials said they don't anticipate using the city's powers of eminent domain to seize private property for redevelopment.

"It is a right that the city has never had to exercise at this point in time," Des Plaines 3rd Ward Alderman Laura Murphy said.

Murphy said existing businesses will have a place in a redeveloped Five Corners taxing district.

"Facades will be changed," she said. "They may be relocated in another area. That does not mean there is not room for them in another area of the TIF."

Last May, city officials unveiled preliminary plans for the largely industrial area near Des Plaines downtown - more than 20 acres bound by River, Rand and Golf roads. The vision for that site includes housing a SuperTarget and smaller stores selling office supplies, shoes, clothes or electronics.

Officials said the developer will incorporate those ideas, developed as part of Chicago-based consultant S.B. Friedman's master plan for the Five Corners taxing district.

Forest City has a development in Bolingbrook called The Promenade Bolingbrook, a 736,000-square-foot open-air center developed in the "main-street" style. The $135 million center is anchored by Macy's and Bass Pro Shops.