When Brian and Margaret Harris decided on a major renovation of their North Riverside home instead of moving to a suburb with bigger homes, the one cost they never counted was an increase in property tax.
”They`re so low to begin with, you don`t even think about how much they`ll go up,” said Margaret Harris, who has lived here since she married 12 years ago. ”If they double, it isn`t that much.”
The reason for the Harris` lack of concern can be seen at Harlem Avenue and Cermak Road, one of Illinois` busiest intersections. To the south along Harlem Avenue lies the North Riverside Park Mall, where 135 shops produce revenue at a rate developers say is 50 percent greater than the national average. The mall`s designer, Melvin Simon & Associates Inc., in November completed a year-long, $30 million renovation, choosing like the Harris family to redo rather than ship out.
To the north lies Joe Rizza Ford, consistently ranked by Ford among its top 10 volume dealers in the nation. Sprinkled along the way are five thriving shopping centers anchored by a central store: Dominick`s, K mart, Highland, Jewel/Osco and Sportmart.
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Sales taxes from the top 10 commercial properties in North Riverside pay more than half the village`s annual real estate tax levy, making residential property taxes among the lowest of Illinois suburban communities and consistently the lowest in Cook County.
Low taxes tell only part of the story.
The Harris family could afford to leave, but chose to stay among North Riverside`s orderly rows of uniformly small and determinedly unfancy bungalows.
And they have neighbors who have followed the same route, putting up additions that can double home size.
”This town feels like a great big family,” explained Margaret Harris, who manages two children a daughter Honora, 9, and a son Justin, 6-runs the local Girl Scout troop and serves on a group named LINK, or Linking Interested Neighbors and Kids. ”I`m amazed at how many people grow up and buy houses here.”
Brian Harris` family lived in North Riverside until his father`s job as a Chicago firefighter required him to move into the city. Even then, his father and mother kept the original home without a tenant for a year so their children could have it. Margaret and Brian occupy it now.
North Riverside is a Chicago ethnic community gone suburban, taking on a different character due to its strong tax base and its encirclement by formidable geographic barriers ranging from the commercial strip along Harlem Avenue and railroad tracks to the south, to forest preserves, light industry, the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery and a National Guard post.
The commercial development has made the village wealthy enough to live up to the promise of a West Side city neighborhood: The house may not be fancy, but a warm heart beats within. The heart tends to thump along a lot better when your parents can afford to live nearby, your brother or sister want to move next door, and you`re near a good job; when the schools are better than OK; when there`s reliable and friendly police and fire protection; when the garbage gets picked up more than once a week; and when local government runs 90 different recreational programs for seniors, mid-lifers, teens, pre-teens and toddlers.
North Riverside is small even by suburban standards, with the 1980 census showing a population of 6,760 that city fathers believe may have slightly increased in the last decade despite what they call an undercount by the U.S. Census Bureau this year. It likes to think of itself as offering small-town virtues in an urban setting, a place where everybody knows your name, where the generations exist alongside each other rather than segregating into age-groups.
There`s nothing stuck up about North Riverside. The first strip of yellow brick ranch houses and bungalows going west from Harlem Avenue are as small as houses can be and still hold families. They have a raw, military look. The yards are spotless. No loose papers blow about. And the trees at this time of year have, of course, shed their foliage, but few leaves have escaped capture and consignment to trash removal containers.
”Our parents had a house and they kept it nice, so we had that in us when we came out here,” said Emily Schab, who has lived in the village for 19 years with her sister, Jendras. Their lawn is so well tended that Mayor Richard N. Scheck says in a serious voice that he believes they trim it with scissors.
”People do manicure their lawns with scissors; I know it sounds like a cliche, but it happens here,” Scheck said.
The Schabs` lawn has a disconcerting appearance. The grass stands upright as though it had a crewcut; hardly a blade bends over the sidewalk. A ceramic swan sits among bushes trimmed to sharp, geometric points. A tidy mulch covers the flower garden, with now-dormant bushes protected by upturned plastic cans, each with a single brick placed on top to keep it weighted down.
The sisters don`t flatly deny using scissors, but they indicate the utensil may be larger than the sewing room variety and may resemble a conventional trimmer, except the sister who uses it notes that she changes the blade with severe regularity.
`You`ve got to upkeep your house,” the sisters said.
North Riverside is divided in half by the Desplaines River and 1st Avenue, which parallel each other. The western residential strip has slightly larger lots and slightly larger homes, with a few two-story Georgian homes mixed in. Nearly all the village`s 2,200 single-family homes (there are 700 apartment units) are one to three bedrooms with 750 to 1,200 square feet of living space and sell for an average price of $135,000 to $140,000, according to estimates by village officials.
When it first was incorporated in 1923, the area was a marshy wilderness nicknamed ”Frog Pond” and given over mostly to onion farming, insofar as gainful employment occurred within its boundaries.
At least one building remains from those days, the Scottish Home for retired men and women on five acres of private woodland among patches of forest preserve along Desplaines Avenue, a low-lying red brick structure of understated grace. It was first built in 1910, a project of the Illinois St. Andrew Society, and rebuilt in 1918 after it was destroyed by fire.
The home has made North Riverside familiar with the kilts and pipes by hosting Highland Games and community picnics and letting the prize-winning Rampant Lion Pipe Band use its grounds for practice.
Wayne Rethford, the administrator, says the home maintains some ties to the community, including providing meals for prisoners in the village jail, the same fare as served at the home.
”It`s the best prisoner meal in Illinois,” said Rethford.
At the time of North Riverside`s founding, its neighbor to the south, Riverside, the creation of famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, declined an offer to annex the unincorporated community. North Riversiders now chortle about that decision as they count their annual sales tax receipts, last year totaling $4,511,482, according to village officials.. Some things are too good to share.
North Riverside hasn`t let a little money go to its head, however. Village administrator Wayne E. Pesek winces when he relates the criticism of some that the newish Village Commons, an 18-acre ”campus” of park land and municipal buildings along Desplaines Avenue completed in 1987, looks
”pretentious.” Being accused of that in North Riverside is a bit like being charged with murdering your family in some wilder communities: Those are words that burn.
Pesek himself is an archetypal North Riversider, though he makes jokes about missing out on being a native because his family moved here when he was 12 years old. He`s always worked for the village, beginning as a part-time water meter reader in 1966 and working his way up to the top administrative job. His parents have a house in the village, as does he.
As Pesek relates it, the village runs a tight financial ship. In November it consolidated its debt in a $4.5 million municipal bond issue with an A1 rating. The $4.5 million includes $1.8 million for a capital spending program for construction of a relief sewer. After banking the sales tax revenue, the village this year needs to levy only an additional $490,000 in property taxes to meet its budget of $7.5 million, including debt service. Taxes for a $125,000 home average $900 a year, depending on exemptions.
For that, the village provides full-time police, fire, ambulance and recreational services, and extends the emergency services to the commercial areas. It employs a full-time staff of 80. Garbage gets collected twice a week and special collections of large objects can be arranged anytime. Police officers and firefighters can be dispatched for small personal services such as helping a senior citizen from an auto into a home.
More than half the village administration building is devoted to community services. The building houses a combination auditorium and basketball court, several comfortable meeting rooms for which demand exceeds supply, a pre-school facility and an arts and crafts room for senior citizens. ”This is the most responsive community I`ve ever worked in,” said Penny Devin, a 25-year veteran of suburban recreation programs who now is director of playground and recreation for North Riverside. A catalog of recreational opportunities outlining about 90 programs gets mailed to each residence.
h, and there`s Veterans Park, 14 acres to the south of the mall area donated by the mall developer, Simon & Associates, and fitted by the village with three ballfields, night lights, a public address system and bleachers. More than 200 youngsters participate in Little League baseball and others play soccer. There`s about 100 acres of forest preserve along the Desplaines River. And if you have the money, there`s the private 93-acre Riverside Golf Course, also along the river. Brookfield Zoo lies within easy walking distance. Too bad there`s nothing to do in the suburbs.
If recreation becomes a bore, there`s always the Park Mall, visited as often as three or four times a week by regular customers, according to mall managers.
”This mall is in a densely populated, stable area with older homes, so the residents aren`t burdened with mortgages,” said John Matheson, assistant mall manager. That means plenty of discretionary spending, and that means shopping. He said an average mall has $200 a year in sales per square foot, while the Park Mall earns better than 50 percent more, or $300 a year per square foot and upward.
By all accounts Simon & Associates consulted closely with the village about the renovation and in response to village concerns installed an elaborate security system with call boxes and television monitoring throughout the 52-acre site. They also spent $300,000 building an earthen berm with spruce and other tree plantings to make a 12-foot-high visual barrier between the mall and the first line of homes.
North Riverside`s residential development came after World War II, when it grew into a community that resembled its neighbors, Cicero and Berwyn, in ethnic uniformity – predominantly Central and Eastern European – and in employment. Fathers worked at the nearby factories, identifying themselves as a ”Western Electric man” or an ”Electro-Motive man.”
Their companies folded or left, and sometimes they did, too, heading for the Sun Belt or watching from retirement as their children left the community. From 1960 to 1980, the village lost a third of its population, dropping from 8,700 to the 6,760 figure. (One Census Bureau estimate puts the population at about 6,200, while the preliminary 1990 census figures had it at slightly more than 5,700.)
But in the last couple of years, that trend has reversed. Attracted by low taxes, low prices, close-in location and the homey atmosphere, younger people have begun moving back to North Riverside. They are more ethnically diverse and many have professional-level jobs.
The village is sending more youngsters to Brookfield-Riverside High School at a time when enrollment in the regional facility is dropping. And voters in November in that district approved by a 3-to-1 margin a school spending issue adding 22 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation, which works out to about $30 per house per year.
Margaret Harris has a particular window on the ethnic attitudes of the village.
I`m Mexican,” she said. ”I don`t think people here even notice what you are. I know of some Filipinos moving in. There are blacks in some apartments.” She said some residents worry that more minorities from neighboring communities will move in, but she doesn`t. ”I`m not all white. If they move in, I don`t care.”
Blanca Ritacca, secretary to the mayor, likewise says her Mexican heritage has never been an issue. After years in the near western suburbs, she and her family moved to California for her husband`s career, but returned and bought a house in North Riverside last January because they missed family and friends. Her brother-in-law`s family also lives in North Riverside. She`s house-hunting for her sister, a lawyer in Texas who likes what she sees in North Riverside.
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`I`m Mexican, too. My husband is Italian, and it`s never been an issue,” she said. ”You know I wouldn`t be sitting here if it was.”
NORTH RIVERSIDE MARKETPLACE
What-Four-bedroom, one-bath, brick bungalow
Where-2521 S. Keystone Ave.
Features-Hardwood floors, natural woodwork, plaster walls, forced-air heat and central air, full basement, two-car garage. Over 50 years old.
List price-$116,900
What-Three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath, brick two-story
Where-2425 S. 9th Ave.
Features-Formal dining room, family room with fireplace, full basement, near forest preserve. Built 1949.
List price-$136,000
What-Three-bedroom, one-bath, brick raised ranch
Where-2249 S. 12th Avenue
Features-Finished family room on lower level, new carpeting in living room, eat-in kitchen. Built 1952.
List price-$128,900
Buying it: An approximation of what it would take to buy the 12th Avenue home at list price.
Loan Down Loan Closing Interest Monthly Qualifying
type payment amount costs rate payment income
Fixed $13,000 $115,900 $3,800 9.5% $1,091 $48,000
Adjustable $25,800 $103,100 $3,400 9.5% $949 $41,000
Note: ”Monthly payment” includes principal, interest, taxes and property insurance. ”Closing costs” include points, application fee, and related charg s. Both loans are amortized over 30 years.
Sources: Loretta Alonzo, Century 21 RBI Inc., North Riverside
(708-442-0444 ; Margaretten & Co., Melrose Park (708-344-1177).
NORTH RIVERSIDE AT A GLANCE
Population: 6,211 (1990 estimate). Change, 1980-90: -8.2 percent. Median age: 44.7 years. Racial/ethnic mix: white (non-Hispanic), 89.4 percent;
Hispanic, 2.0 percent; black, 7.4 percent; other, 1.2 percent.
Area: 1.6 square miles, in Cook County. Average household income: $34,909 (1990 estimate). Per capita income: $13,731 (1987 estimate), 130th of 262 in six-county Chicago area.
Median price of single-family home: $140,000 (1990 estimate). Average annual property tax on median-priced home: $1,000. Average resale price (10 months ended 10/31/90): $130,914.
Public schools:
District Enrollment Pupils Expenditure
(no. of schools) per teacher per pupil
Komarek 94 (1) 242 11.7 $7,142
Riverside 96 (5) 913 17.6 $5,349
Riverside-Brookfield HS 854 16.7 $9,045
208 (1)
Average American College Test score: Riverside-Brookfield H.S. 21.0 (61st percentile).
Driving distances: To Loop, 12 miles; to O`Hare International Airport, 18 miles; to Midway Airport, 7 miles. Rush-hour commute: Burlington Northern train service from Riverside station to Union Station, 16 minutes, $68.65 for monthly pass.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census; Metra; Illinois State Board of Education; Village of North Riverside.