Schaumburg approves new look for Trickster Gallery

Having just marked its fifth anniversary in Schaumburg, the American Indian Center of Chicago's Trickster Gallery will undergo a facelift before celebrating its sixth.

Nothing at all is changing about the focus of the gallery at 190 S. Roselle Road and its rotating exhibit of contemporary Native American art.

But Schaumburg trustees Tuesday approved a $484,000 facade improvement for the 7,550-square-foot building the village owns and leases to the Trickster Gallery for $1 a year.

The change not only will transform the building's color scheme from gray and white to a more rustic tan and green, but also introduce other elements like window shutters and peaks in the wood canopy over the porch to make its appearance less severe.

Though it's hoped the Trickster Gallery will remain in the building for years to come, village officials said none of the proposed facade changes are specifically for that tenant.

Funding will come from the tax-increment financing fund which paid for public improvements for the whole redevelopment area around the intersection of Schaumburg and Roselle roads.

The TIF fund works by taking the increased real estate taxes properties in the area would have paid other local taxing bodies since 1990, but it will expire in 2013.

The facade changes will be done this fall. The price tag also includes landscape improvements to be done the following spring.

Next year may also see roof work done to the building, which won't duplicate any of the facade work being done this year, Senior Planner Tom Farace said.

The nearly 40-year-old building originally housed Lake-Cook Farm Supply. Since being acquired by the village it has been leased for $1 a year to cultural groups like the Chicago Athenaeum and now the American Indian Center.