After more than 25 years of making it up as they went along, a narrowly split Forest Park village council has suddenly got that old “request for proposal” religion.
With an unsolicited proposal in hand for large and upscale housing at the village-owned portion of The Altenheim, the mayor and staff first tried to bury the news that a developer wants to drop a $145 million, taxpaying, no municipal incentives requested project in the lap of a village government that is essentially broke.
Since May, Mayor Rory Hoskins and Village Administrator Rachell Entler have declined to engage with representatives of the project. And when the developers tried to get the attention of the full council by having packets explaining the project delivered to their Village Hall mailboxes, those packets weren’t immediately delivered to elected officials.
Odd and impossible to justify.
When the reality that this proposal was real became uncomfortably weird, it finally surfaced at a budget meeting on July 8 where the council failed, yet again, to take any action to raise new revenues for the cash-strapped village. Hoskins, who has provided zero leadership on any aspect of Altenheim development, said then that there was no consensus on the council “to fully entertain an unsolicited proposal.”
Excellent leadership, Mayor.
A week later in the commissioners’ comments portion of an otherwise and typically unproductive village council meeting, the actual consensus was revealed. It is time to finally make a plan, one that is completely open and transparent to issue a request for proposals for the property. And just maybe the new village planning consultant could hold a public meeting no one will come to that will explain what a request for proposals is.
Here’s the problem: Forest Park can’t request proposals from developers until the council has a damned clue what they are looking for at the Altenheim. And this mayor and council do not have any idea how this valuable land ought to be used. Forest Park’s elected leaders have been dithering for a quarter-century about the Altenheim.
So now there is an unsolicited proposal from a developer. We know from Commissioner Maria Maxham that the project includes two five story buildings, several hundred luxury apartment units. She says the developer estimates its project will bring in property taxes that will benefit village hall by almost $400,000 annually and the local elementary schools by about $1 million. Maxham thinks those numbers seem too high.
Maxham also said at the recent budget meeting that the developer has offered to pay the village $3.6 million for the site.
That sounds like a lot. And it is a lot when you’re broke. But taking the long view, let’s recall the village paid the good folks at the Altenheim German Old Folks Home $3 million for the parcel a quarter of a century ago. That was all borrowed money. The village only recently paid off that loan. So a $3.6 million payday will not make the village whole on the worst real estate investment on record.
Should the council unilaterally accept this proposal which is very high-end and, while it includes a fair amount of green space, permanently eliminates any real public space on the site? Maxham and this columnist agree. Of course not. But they should engage with the developer, listen and suggest, nudge and bend. If nothing else, having an actual proposal to discuss ought to be clarifying for what this aimless batch of officials might actually settle on for this property.