The $75,000 Parking Spot
And what does Stone say? “He’s a schmuck,” says Stone. “I love running against schmucks.”
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Brewer, an architect with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, says he had one of those aha moments that could occur to anyone who takes the time to study one of hun-dreds of deals that are routinely approved every year. The parking garage is the product of the Devon-Western tax increment financing district, which, like all other TIFs, siphons property taxes away from schools and parks in order to subsi-dize development that, in theory anyway, will eventually generate even more tax revenue. In the case of the commercial stretch of Devon just west of Western, the biggest need is parking, says Stone, who along with city planning officials controls how the millions in the Devon-Western TIF fund will get spent. “It’s especially bad on weekend nights, when traffic’s almost at a standstill,” he says. “People are begging for parking. They’ve been telling me this for years.”
Brewer thinks the deal is a travesty. The development will dwarf the two-story buildings around it, stretching from lot line to lot line with a portion hanging over the sidewalk on Rockwell. What’s more he says, it doesn’t add enough parking to justify its $4.5 million subsidy. According to the building plans, the development will create a total of 215 spaces, 37 of which will be reserved for the new condos and stores. In that case 178 will be left for the general public, a net gain of 124 spaces over the 54 in the current parking lot.
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Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Laura Park.
