A List of Oak Park-owned Real Estate
In Part 1 of my two-part article on "Oak Park's Kelo Problem," I noted that "[t]he village of Oak Park owns a LOT of real estate, and its portfolio continues to grow." How much real estate are we talking about? The Wednesday Journal recently published a list of Village-owned properties:
1125-1133 Lake St. (the Colt Building)
1145 Westgate (office building)
1113 Lake St. (Los Cazadores restaurant)
1121-1123 Lake St. (retail building)
1112-1118 Westgate (office/retail building)
2-10 Chicago Ave. (mixed-use building)
2 North Boulevard (parking lot)
708 Lake St. (Tasty Dog restaurant)
130 N. Marion St. (former Sawyer Business College)
301 S. Oak Park Ave. (empty lot)
710-24 Madison St. (empty lots (3))
250-60 Madison St. (former Shepherd Volvo)
239-45 Madison St.
301-07 Madison St.
826-28 S. Oak Park Ave. (empty building)
The same issue lists tax revenues from twenty new construction projects undertaken in Oak Park since 2000. The tax revenues from these projects? $4,131,914. I wonder how much tax revenue the fifteen village-owned properties would generate if they were privately owned?
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