Quote:
Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
Them some fightin words 'round here, son.
Putting the absurd some of $51 million aside, do you think TIF money should never be spent to ensure many of Chicago's historic office buildings remain?
Not doing so would probably spell doom for many of the Loop's dilapidated office towers from the 1900s, 1910s, etc. Is there a public interest in keeping these around as part of Chicago's architectural heritage? Very few of the recent restoration of these grand old buildings would have been feasible without tax breaks and/or TIF assistance.
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It's not an historic office building. It's an obsolete, single-use, environmentally-compromised, non-sprinklered, access-challenged, inefficient, crumbling hulk. I'm sure there were plenty of postal workers officing there back in the day, but it's basically an industrial site. It happened to have been built when Art Deco was big, but it simply is not a significant Art Deco achievement. It's not even a blip on the radar screen. The CBOT building and the Pittsfield Building are worth saving. The Post Office is not.
Your point about the loop buildings (and other buildings) is taken, but the cost there is significantly lower and the impact on the streetscape is significantly higher. As opposed to the historic structures along Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, the old Post Office has ZERO foot traffic around it. In examples that you're thinking of the TIF money merely acts as a carrot for developers to pick this opportunity as opposed to that one. TIF money is supposed to sweeten an investment opportunity, not to raise it up from DOA status.
This $51 mil isn't an "incentive," it's a corporate welfare payment.
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