Hazel Crest will study creating a tax increment financing district for the Calumet Country Club, but the move doesn’t commit the village to annexing the property, the village’s mayor said Thursday.
Now in unincorporated Cook County, the 130-acre property, northwest of Dixie Highway and 175th Street, has been proposed as a location of a factory to build components for manufactured homes as well as an indoor water park, hotel, retail space and restaurant.
An annexation application for the property has been filed with Hazel Crest, Mayor Vernard Alsberry said, and the Village Board voted Tuesday to hire a consultant to study a TIF district.
“This is not a commitment,” Alsberry said. “This is just preliminary, to see what a TIF would do in that area.”
Founded in 1901 and annexed to Homewood in 1980, the golf course had most recently been proposed as a site for up to 800,000 square feet of warehouse space by property owner Walt Brown Jr.
His company, Arizona-based Diversified Partners, paid $3.3 million in the fall of 2020 for the golf course property.
Homewood officials rejected the plan before voting in April 2021 to allow the country club to disconnect from the village.
Hazel Crest borders the property on three sides, and the village will also study whether utilities such as sewer and water lines can be extended to the golf course, Alsberry said.
Members of South Suburbs for Greenspace, a group largely comprised of Homewood residents who coalesced to combat the original warehouse development, urged Hazel Crest officials this week to reject any large-scale redevelopment that relies on industrial uses, such as manufacturing or distribution.
“People elected you to protect them from environmental threats, such as cancer caused by diesel pollution, and to protect their property from flooding caused by removing grasslands, wetlands and green space,” Liz Varmecky, founder of the group, told the board.
Varmecky said she doubted any retailers, hotel operators or a water park would want to locate in the shadow of a manufacturing site “because they know their establishments would draw zero customers at this location.”
Principals of Catalyst Consulting have identified the firm as the “majority developer” of the golf course property, although it doesn’t own the site and has thrown in potential uses including a grocery store and indoor sports center with basketball courts and a community center.
Alsberry said Thursday he and other Hazel Crest officials have yet to be presented with a redevelopment plan, and said the goal is to generate tax revenue that will benefit the village.
He said what is proposed now will likely change over time.
“You never know what it’s going to end up at at the end of the day,” Alsberry said. “At the end of the day you have to look at what’s feasible.”
In emails South Suburbs for Greenspace obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Act, John Murphey, Hazel Crest’s village attorney, cast doubt about the viability of some components Catalyst has suggested.
In email exchanges with Hazel Crest officials, Murphey said he doubted a water park would open at the site and that he doesn’t believe there is any market for a hotel, considering the number of hotels to the east of Hazel Crest off the intersection of Interstates 80/94 and Halsted Street.
More Top Picks Best Fireproof Document Bags
Plainfield-based Teska Associates Inc., the consultant hired by the village for fee not to exceed $27,000, said in a letter it could take four to six months to evaluate and create a TIF district.
“It’s not a quick process,” Alsberry said Thursday.
The property would have to be annexed to Hazel Crest before a TIF could be created, according to the firm.
Illinois’ TIF law was intended to give communities an economic development tool to spur development of “blighted” properties that have seen falling property values, sometimes due to vacant buildings or buildings that have fallen into disrepair.
The law states in deciding to create a TIF, a village has to determine development or redevelopment within the district would not occur without the creation of a TIF, which offers benefits to developers.
In its letter to the village, Teska said that the country club has few structures including a large clubhouse, which makes it more difficult to determine whether the property is eligible for TIF designation, compared with a more fully developed site.
Within a TIF district, the equalized assessed value of property is set at a base amount. Increases in property value and property tax revenue, or the increment, is set aside in a special fund, and that incremental tax revenue can be used to pay costs for things such as property improvements and demolishing buildings, as well as installing public improvements such as streets and utilities.
Apart from the municipality that creates the TIF district, other taxing bodies, such as school and park districts, don’t see the benefits of the higher tax revenue created by development until after the TIF expires, typically after 23 years.
Those taxing bodies need to agree to a redevelopment plan and creation of a TIF, and a public hearing is also required.