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PANEL APPROVES TIF GRANT for SOUTHEAST CHICAGO PROJECT- 6/08
A City panel has approved a $26.5-million subsidy to help finance a 953-unit residential development replacing a mobile-home park on the Southeast Side.The Chicago Community Development Commission voted unanimously to approve the tax-increment financing (TIF) grant for the $287-million project on a 130-acre site in Southeast Chicago. New West Realty Development Corp. will begin marketing 142 units in the project’s first phase by next spring.The development, expected to take place over 15 years, would replace Harbour Point Estates at 134th Street and Avenue K, the only mobile home park in the city.“We’re already getting calls from prospective buyers staking their claim,” says Erik Hagen, a member of the investor group that owns the property and will develop it. (New West is an adviser on the project, not an investor.)
On June 23 the Chicago Department of Environment sponsored a summer night hike at Hegewisch Marsh to experience life in a city woodland and wetland after dusk .Hegewisch Marsh is a breeding ground for many birds including herons and migrant landbirds. The site at 130th Street was acquired by the City of Chicago as a refuge and educational center.
A combination of open water, marsh, sand prairie, and sand savanna can be found at our local marshes. Numerous rare species also live here, including the banded killifish and Franklin's ground squirrel. Wolf Lake and the areas around its shores are known to harbor migrant birds, several rare fish and several rare plants. Last year the City and State received $750,000 from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to restore Hegewisch Marsh.
O’HARE MODERNIZATION PROGRAM to FUND $2 MILLION HYDE LAKE WETLANDS PROJECT
Mayor Richard M. Daley joined City and environmental officials to announce that the O’Hare Modernization Program will provide more than $2 million dollars to create 15 acres of new wetlands at Hyde Lake Wetlands, located in the Calumet region on the far Southeast Side of the City. Eventually the City’s plan will restore and preserve the more than 30,000 acres of wetlands and natural areas.“These wetland improvements will create a better wildlife habitat for the state-endangered birds that currently use this area and also provide public walkways and observations areas for visitors and residents of the community,” said the Mayor .Physical work on the selected wetlands will begin in the fall of 2008.Thirty-six acre Heron Pond is home to one of the state’s largest rookeries of state-endangered black-crowned night heron and is located along the Calumet River. Hyde Lake Wetlands, located at 126th St. and Carondolet Ave., is a 28-acre wetland next to Indian Creek just across from Ford’s Chicago Manufacturing Campus.
The wetlands restoration is part of Calumet Initiative that designated 3,900 acres as an open space reserve and 3,000 acres for economic development .“This area contains some of the few remaining wetlands in Illinois, and it serves as habitat for more than 40 percent of our state’s endangered species,” Daley said. “At the same time, it has great potential for economic development. This was once a center of heavy industry, and it contains 60 percent of the available industrial land in the city.”