The Future of Southland Development — Transportation-Oriented Development, I-57 Growth & Regional Investment

Video Version: https://youtu.be/cBoUuWVzGdc

Panelists: Mayor Roudez, University Park | Architect Edward Peck

 Series: The First Million is Always the Hardest — ACHIEVE Summit Series

Bo Kemp moderates a sharp, forward-looking conversation with University Park Mayor Roudez and architect Edward Peck on what it will take to unlock the Southland's full potential. The panel covers the I-57 growth corridor and transportation-oriented development, strategies to ease the tax burden on residents and businesses, the data center opportunity or debacle, and a direct call to the Chicago Bears — as they search for a new home, the Southland is ready, willing, and built for it.

Because the first million is always the hardest. But for the Southland — the breakthrough starts now.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Do you get that knot in your stomach every Sunday night? You've checked all the boxes career, title, income. But if you're honest, this is not the life you imagine. What if the problem isn't you? It's the design of your life. I'm Bo. I help high performers redesign their life for freedom, purpose, and real wealth. Join my master class and I'll walk you through the exact framework. Go to lifedesign.com. That's L-I-F-E-D-E-S-Y-N.com. Your new chapter doesn't start someday, it starts now. The Southland is sitting on one of the greatest untapped economic opportunities in the entire Chicagoland region. And today we're going to talk about why and what it's going to take to finally unlock it. I'm Bo Kemp, and this is the Achieve Summit Series episode, where I'm joined by University Park Mayor Rudez and the architect Edward Peck. We're talking about transportation-oriented development, the I-57 corridor, the tax burden, data centers, and yes, a direct message to the Chicago Bears. This is the conversation that Southland has been waiting for. Let's get to it. This conversation was important to us because there's a phenomenon that's happening right now that may not be obvious to everybody. You know, for decades, a lot of the Chicagoland area has been focused on development, it feels like, everywhere except the Southland. And we have felt strongly that they have made a miscalculation, that the opportunity in the Southland is much, much stronger than they perceive it to be. But time has moved in a direction that I think is going to be to the benefit of the Southland. Meaning that much of the development that could have happened in the 90s and the 2000s and 210s here is going to come here because most of the development that has taken place has happened already in the West and northern suburbs. It doesn't leave a lot of other opportunities. And you know, one of the things that lots of times the general public doesn't recognize is that the professional money that does development, their job is to make investments. It's not to just say no all the time. It may feel that way, but that's actually not what happens. They have to be in a place to make investments in order for them to do their jobs. And so they're going to start to spend a lot more time looking at the South Surbs as an opportunity for them, for both residential, for commercial, and industrial. And we think there are two specific areas that are really critical to growth in the suburbs. One is around transit-oriented development. And that means developing around existing train stops, metro stops, bus stops, and things of that nature. That matters for a whole variety of reasons. One of the reasons is density is a key element to actually creating the kind of neighborhoods that people want. Density also brings in population growth. And population growth is the single most important aspect of actually reducing the tax burden that residents have. But the other reason is if you're trying to create the kind of commercial access that people want, you want small grocery stores in your neighborhood, you want to be able to walk to a place where you can sit down and eat. You need enough people in density to attract the commercial to come in that location. So as you think about developing directly in concert with existing stops, that actually promotes all of those things at the same time. And the Southland is very fortunate because there's already been billions of dollars of invested infrastructure to create public transportation to many of our areas all the way out to University Park as well. And that actually is a critical thing that doesn't exist in a lot of other neighborhoods. But the other part of this that's important is that we have corridors that are still nascent, meaning that they have not been fully developed. A lot of the corridors along 294 and 80 and 94 have been developed. They're natural paths to drive throughout the nature of the country, right? 80 goes all the way from New York all the way to the West Coast. But I-57 also represents an amazing untapped corridor to date. Um, and we believe that in the future that that's gonna be one of the areas. That's not to the exclusion of all the other areas, because we have amazing corridors here, Halstead Street that travels throughout the south suburbs, Lincoln Highway, just as two examples, Cicero, et cetera. Um, but today we're gonna talk a little bit broadly about what we think that opportunity looks like going forward. And we've got two people here that I'm gonna have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about themselves uh as we uh engage in a broader conversation. I'll start with you, Mayor Rudez, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself.

SPEAKER_08 4:57

Okay, you want to pick on me first, huh, Bo? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm Mayor Joseph E. Rudez III, and I represent the great village of University Park. We are home to Governor State University. We are the beginning of the Metro Station. We are idealistically located along I-57 Corridor. If I'm not mistaken, we have the second largest industrial park in the state of Illinois, and we're home to over 200 Fortune, 500 companies. Not no knock on anybody in Cook County, but we're in 80% in Wheel County, 20% in Cook County. So there are a lot of different advantages for businesses in the Will County section. So this is a little bit about what I've done since I've been the mayor, and I became mayor in 2019. Since then, we've brought in a 1.2 million square foot Amazon. We were able to bring a century steel and wire, which a lot of people have known as Wires and Steel, from the city of Chicago. They were there for 130 years. Now their national headquarters are right across from Amazon in the great village of University Park. We have the Carvana's largest site in the state of Illinois, which is 110 acres on the corner of University Parkway and Cisco Avenue. We are also home to New Samsung. We have a huge project that's going on now. We're looking at annexing and expanding our footprint. We're going to go west across I-57, north down the Steger Road. So those who are in the audience today who are looking for great opportunities and advantages, University Park is the place to start. Not to mention the Metro Station, not to mention the two pristine golf courses and not the open land, the green space, the potential third airport, maybe 10 minutes south of us. So University Park is a great place for you guys to invest in, look at, and working with the Southland Development Corporation, it's a win-win for everybody that's here in this room. So think about University Park when it comes to investing your dollars and planning to see it for the next generation.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

That was well done. See, when you're mayor, you're a marketer, see, right? Good job. I gotta tell you, um, you gotta hurry up because they're not gonna be uh all these houses that they're about to build, you better get one early because the prices are going up. We, I want to say, have partnered with uh Mayor Rudez and his team, who've been phenomenal, and are in the process of acquiring large tracts of land, 240 acres, that as a not-for-profit organization, we're helping to develop because we want to be part of the vision that the mayor just laid out. Um, we want to put our money where our mouth is. If we are marketing on behalf of the entire region and making the claim that I just started with that this is the place that you should be investing alongside any other place you're thinking in Chicago and Ladgeon region, the best way to do that is to show them that we're invested in the same way. With that, I'd like to have you, Edward Peck, uh, introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your background and some of the projects that you've been working on.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So, Edward Peck, I moved to the Southland in 2019 before COVID, uh, with my wife. My wife is a landscape architect and urban planner. I'm an architect and urban planner. So it starts with the context, the urban environment, the rural environment, wherever we are. And then we start to figure out the buildings and the architecture and then the landscape that connects the two, right? So that's kind of where where I am. But so I worked internationally, my wife worked internationally, we came down here just to raise a family. After a few years, it became evident that there was a lack of innovation and thought in the design community down here, and there was an opportunity. And so I've been working with SDA for several years now, thinking about how we map out these big ideas. And so one thing that I wanted to point out is a lot of people drive around with Google Maps, right? And you you kind of go from point A. If we go to the next slide here, I wanted to kind of show you, and I did this this morning. Um, I don't know if you can see it very well, but this is, you know, here we are, right? We're we're right here at this dot. This is Chicago. This is all of the Southland. We're 20 to 28 to 30 miles south of the loop. And that's our region. But as Bo was pointing out, look at these. The orange represents some of the major arteries in in uh 29480, 294 splits goes up, and this is I-57 corridor. But the most valuable thing that we have is this the best metro line in the Chicago area is the Metro Electric. Ending at University Park. Beginning at a line. That's right. Beginning at Millennium Station, which is great. When I first commuted when I moved down here, my office was two blocks away from Millennium Station. I didn't have to walk from you know Oberstree all the way over. So that's like we we're we have the two best end points, right? The bookends of University Park and Millennium Station. And look at this line, and look at all these little squares that I put here. Those are all what what Bo mentioned as the TOD, the transit-oriented development opportunities. That's Harvey, that's that's uh Hazelcrest, it's Homewood, it's Fossmore, it's Olympia Fields, and on down the line. We have property almost adjacent to every one of those metro stops that we need to look at to densify and actually bring in development. But then we also have these other corridors and and sub-corridors that kind of link it. So I think it was always I thought it was good to sort of bring this map in because I think people don't look at the context the way maybe I do because of my profession. But this we're in a prime location here. We we also have potentially the third airport, and that's going in down here. So that that really would develop this whole region as an epicenter of uh a new um sort of Chicago suburb region. And one of the things that I think that is really important, which is SDA is bringing to the table, is that how many 45 communities we have down there? Wow. They can't work as islands. You can't just rely on Homewood to do a casino or for somebody else to do something. We need to start to tie these communities together and go after big visionary ideas. And I think SDA is an important part of that, but I think they can't operate on their own. We need to somehow come together as a collective Southland and start to promote things. Uh, one of the things, and I'll I'll I'll pass on after this, but one of the things we were just talking backstage is we also need to sort of lay down the effort before we bring all businesses and all development into the Southland. So, what does that mean? We have to act like we want that, right? And and so we have all of these corridors. I say you have gateways into different communities. A lot of our gateways are the exit off I-57. I live down Balmer, I get off I-57, I turn, and I have two lands, two lands, and concrete with weeds grown in it. We have to step that up. Now that's a state road, there, or that's a county road, there's other state roads. We have to work together to basically say we need to work on that beautification of the infrastructure, and then these outside developers will know that we're serious about what we're trying to do. And I think there's some great developments going on. Residential, so just take 15 more seconds, right? Um, we're working on the residential to densify these TEOD projects. Uh, we're also looking at affordable home uh opportunities in Harvey in Chicago Heights. Cook County is working with a nonprofit and myself in Chicago Heights, bringing new home opportunities, retail restaurants. We're working on a project in Flossmore that will bring in high-end retail, high-end restaurants, a new sort of destination point, not just another restaurant, but like some type of multiple restaurants, actually. Multiple restaurants. We call it the restaurant row, and then I have this urban street of retail that we've developed. So it's not a strip mall, it's more of an urban, sort of centric sort of location to come to. We have industry. You know, we have I-57 corridor, the industrial sort of land. I mean, that can drive our economic success here. It may not be what everybody wants, but it's actually a big part, yes, right?

SPEAKER_08 13:48

And just think about my community with Governor State. Now, what's sad about that is Governor State has over 200 Indian students who live in South Loop who have to commute each and every day. And both what you mentioned earlier about how we reduce the property taxes, we build rooftops. And Illinois is really lacking in rooftops. So with our Metro Station, it is our hopes and plans to continue to work with Governor State to build mixed-use development right across from the university, right adjacent to the metro station, and just have the community grow. We need the housing market.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

Absolutely. Well, there's a there is an opportunity, and I know Governor State and some folks from Governor State have been here, if they're not here now, that are Mr. Davis. Okay, I thought he was here. I didn't see you in the light here, but um, they have an interest too in actually keeping students and workers close to campus. They have work play. That's right. And and so there is this opportunity to actually move forward in exactly the way that you described, uh, mayor. And part of our role as a Southland Development Authority, despite our title of authority, we really don't have any authority. In order to do any work, we work in concert. So we go to the municipalities and we work with them. We think this is actually a plus, not a negative, because it means any ideas or any thoughts or things that we do, we can only do them with community support. And I think one of the challenges that many people have had, many other areas, not just not in this area, is they're not working closely enough in concert with the community. Now, let's be clear, um, people don't always know what they want, right? Like you didn't need an iPod in 1996, but you did in 2001. You didn't know you needed that, but now you do. And so there's an education process that has to go on to help people understand sometimes what the options are and why one option may be different than another option. These are very difficult decisions because the Southland also has a couple of assets that are very difficult to replicate. In addition to the fact that we have land and we have transportation infrastructure already built. And by the way, if you were to go outside of uh the Chicago land area and try to identify another large-scale suburban neighborhood to any of the major uh uh cities in America, um, you will not find as well-built infrastructure for transportation as exists here. Does not happen anywhere. And I've worked in 15 different communities around the country. This is very, very unique. There's nowhere in the Midwest that has this. Not one city, right? You have to go east to even sniff at getting close, and nothing on the West Coast, maybe with the exception of Portland. We're unique, right, in this regard, but we also have a couple of other things that really matter right now. We've got access to power, right? We actually sit right here on two power grids. Why does that matter? Because if one power grid goes out, you want the other one to work, right? And so you're here at a place where if you were to build something to access the power grid, you get access to two, not just one. We also have fresh water. That kind of redundancy is far as pay millions for, right? And we also have water, clean water from the lake. Um, and these are assets that don't exist in most of the other country part of the country. I'll add one.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Cook County has a ton of nature preserves down here. Look at this map.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

All the way to how specifically in University Park.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Our area is in comparison to some of these other areas around here. And that really, I think, is a huge thing that people we drive by them all the time, but we don't realize the importance of Cook County years ago saying that land is gonna not be developed. It's gonna be a lung to the south side, it's gonna be well there's a value to that, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:34

There's a value that accrues to the building. And so, you know, I want to go back to you for a second, Mayor. When you think about a longer-term vision for University Park, um, you know, I'm curious how large do you think the city can become in terms of its population? And what are some of the key aspects that a city like yours needs to take that next step?

SPEAKER_08 17:57

Well, I I'll tell you this, Bo. Doing my research, University Park was a planned community for over 100,000 residents, and it was based on the industrial park because the whole perception was build the industrial park, it will bring families there, it will give them an opportunity to build housing and live and work close to where you get your money at. Because you think about when families have to go from University Park to downtown Chicago, it takes a lot of time on the metro station, going north, then coming back south. So it takes away from your finances, then it takes away from the quality time with your family. So the whole conception nowadays is making the transition to having an area as such as the TOD study where you can actually have a gainful employment.

unknown 18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 18:41

You don't have to travel miles away, you'll have a nice place to live, and all the amenities that surround that. So, and my actual vision for the community is to have University Park, something like Illinois State, Eastern Illinois, it's a college town. Yeah. And we're gonna keep on pounding the hammer until we get the college town that we deserve. So we're transforming a lot of people's mindsets, they are still stuck in the Flintstones.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 19:04

So we're transitioning from the Flintstones to the Jetsons, and sometimes, and so sometimes that's really challenging. So yeah, yeah, that's a great point.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

And you know, just the effort, and I know Governor State has got its own effort that they're doing that in coordination with you. If you were simply to just increase another two to three thousand people that are living in proximity to both the university and university park, that is a substantial increase already in the city. Knowing that the plan was for 100,000 gives us a lot of confidence about the core of the infrastructure that's there and what's possible in coordination.

SPEAKER_08 19:39

I would love to see it during my tenure. If the low eds are willing and I get re-elected next year, I'd like to at least get the town of $20,000, 20,000 people and pass it on to the next generation and continue to build and build and grow.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

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SPEAKER_09 20:31

Your listening to the first million is always the hardest. We are now returning to the show.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

Now, what are some of the issues that you think the community is concerned about that need to be addressed to appropriately recruit the kind of uh professional investment money to grow University Park in the right way?

SPEAKER_08 20:51

A different brand of housing. University Park hasn't had housing in over 20 years, new homes. So there's what we'll consider an old section, but there needs to be a revitalization of a new section and bring in younger families. Because my goal is to see young families on Saturday morning walking and jogging throughout the community, college students just jogging around, taking advantage of all the great amenities in the community. It's right there. And then Governor State again, I can't do too much without the university because they're the heartbeat of the community in our community. They have so many great programs and so many great things there. And I think it's a diamond that people don't realize the true value of the things and the opportunities that here in the South land.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

Yeah, and I will just say to make sure that we give credit where credit is due, not only is Governor State one of the great institutions, the educational institutions here in the area, we've got Prairie State, we've got South Suburban College, and they really form a core of anchors for us around education that take you all the way down uh all of the pattern that you see on the screen behind me, where there's an opportunity for us to leverage them. You know, Ed, I wanted to

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Add something to it. You know, we talk about infrastructure. I think education is part of that infrastructure. We also have culture. And that is something that's already established. I don't know how many of you know the Nate, which is the Nathan Manilow sculpture park at Governor State. It is voted every year, number one or number two, in the nation, for an outdoor sculpture park. I take my kids there all the time. It's culture. It's something that we already have here, and we need to tap into it. I'm saddened to hear so few people that actually know it, that take their families there. But I think that is another layer that we can build onto. And I was just gonna, as you guys were talking, it's like, you know what we need? I I speak about this. It can't be Flossmore and Homewood and University Park doing it alone. I think we need a 30-year plan for the whole South Lake. The region, yeah. And I think when you start to put a document together like that, and you start to say how this is gonna be a hundred thousand-person community and it's only 15 now, or you know, I you have to kind of sell that vision. And this is one of the things that it's like you you can talk about a vision all day long, but you gotta you gotta document it, you gotta plan it, you gotta dream it, and then you start to get people engaged. Well, I think that's something that we're absolutely making.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

One of the reasons that the Southland Development Authority even exists is that the average municipality is actually less than 15,000 people. And so when you're that small, it's very difficult for any municipality to have all of the skill sets as part of their team that are already paid on staff. You you have a phenomenal team of folks, and you know, your city manager uh is phenomenal, and not everybody is as fortunate to have the team that you have, but it's hard to actually have the specialists in this area and that area to be able to do the kind of planning and the work that many municipalities need. We are serving as a coordinating entity, and that is kind of our point, and hopefully an entity that takes some of the aspirations of an individual municipality to the next level. I want to dovetail to your point about culture. We've been fortunate with the Southland Development Authority to be working with Hazelcrest and working with them on their um uh arts uh uh district that they've developed. When we started our conversation, which was in 2021, they had a concept for an arts district, and we asked the question, like, well, what type of arts district do you want? Do you want it to look like Winwood in Miami? What do you want it to look like? And at that point, they really weren't sure what to do. Um and now we've gone from being not sure, but being eager to have something that is a cultural representation and potentially a destination, to now, with the help of Cook County and a variety of other folks who've supported, um, have a building, have redeveloped a building, are in the process of continuing to do programming in that space, creating additional cultural centers. And, you know, these are important because, as Edward alluded to, what the private market is looking to see is that you put your money where your mouth is, right? Are you investing in the infrastructure that you need? Are you making the changes to the entrances and the exits of all the major highways and county roads? Are you actually investing in creating the cultural institutions, the green space, and all those elements that can be leveraged by the private sector as amenities? But there are some challenges that we have. You know, one, and I hope I'm not going to get you in trouble at all, Mayor, is that there is this overwhelming desire from people who have all the money in the world to build data centers everywhere. Right? And I will just say that data centers are tricky for a lot of reasons. One, because the future will tell you that if you don't have enough data centers in your area, then you will not have enough jobs. You'll be like technology. Data centers are going to be connected to the jobs of the future, like it or not. At the same time, if you have too many data centers, you're going to run to different issues. Because data centers, unlike a manufacturing plant, a data center is principled on a couple of things that, if not managed well, can be problematic, right? They need water, they need power, but they also are premised on having technology that has a very short half-life, as they call it, right? It's not like a manufacturing plant that you build and might be operable for 50 years. You know, what's in that data center is going to be technologically obsolete in five to seven years, right? So you're having to reinvest in all of that. So these are not easy decisions, but they are hundred-year decisions. These are not five-year, ten-year decisions, they are hundred-year decisions. And I just wonder from your perspective, Mayor, um, how have you approached this issue in your community?

SPEAKER_08 26:57

Well, I'm listening to the people and I'm doing my research, and that's the most important thing. I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm not saying I'm for it as we come, but we someone has to be bold enough to plant the seed for the next generation. So it's under careful consideration. Everyone's knocking at our door because we're such a land wealthy community. Yeah. So I'm I understand the need for them. I'm very concerned about the environment, about the water usage and the electrical drain. Uh, Joliet just passed a huge one out in Joliet. So I'm just watching the trend as things go on. Because in reality, we all have data centers already. Like in our in our municipality, where our servers are for our police and fire, that's a small data center. So it's just a larger scale that feeds more people. So we just have to constantly research it. I want to make the best informed decision. I don't want to stunk the growth, but I don't want to be too aggressive. So, step by step, as things get a little better and we learn more about it, we're going to the next generation.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

You know, it's uh it's a great point you make about the existence of data centers already, right? Many of our communities already have these data centers, it's just a smaller scale. Um, and as we scale up, though, there's an impact and something for us to think about. One of the reasons it's very difficult for a lot of communities to decide whether they want to do this or not is because data centers don't hire a lot of people, but they pay a lot in taxes, right? And so when you start thinking about that, you know, that's one of the things that appeals to you. But to make a community whole, it needs to have a variety of elements. And you and I worked on a project, we were unsuccessful with this project, but it was a really important project in Homewood, and I thought it was worthwhile for you to maybe share a little bit about what we were trying to do in Homewood and what we learned out of that process.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

And I'll try to do a segue in into that from our last conversation technology. So one of the things that I put on this map this morning is that little square. Does anybody know what that is? City of Chicago. Southworks. Okay. So that's gonna be the chip manufacturing. That's high-end jobs, and that's a huge future development, right? And so I was recently talking to another mayor from the South Line. Where are those people gonna live?

unknown 29:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Can we try to grab them to the metroelectric line and get them to live in these communities down here? And so you gotta think outside of your boundaries, right? You gotta think about, well, if that's a huge development and data center is a huge development down here, are we kind of this network in the middle? I'll also explain why you know why we have this history of golf courses here. You had steel tycoons that had manufacturing over here, their offices in the city. This was their halfway point. We capitalize on that infrastructure, that green infrastructure that they built years ago and all these great country clubs and everything. We can lure people black down to this thing. And then to go to the TOD in Homewood, so I mean, this is part of it, right? With the density, we cannot become 100,000 in University Park and 50 more thousand in Homewood, but until we think about how we densify everything and we do it properly, right? Right? So these are 100-year decisions we've made. So some of this property that so there's a uh the village, I don't know if anyone's here from Homewood, but they've determined that they need to add density to the downtown to continue to grow. And when we say continue to grow, if you want more restaurants, you want more entertainment, you want more retail, you have to bring more people in. So where they they looked out of their parking lot and said, We don't fill that parking lot. Could we develop on that parking lot? So we went to them and said, Yes, we we would like to propose a 100, 120-unit apartment building on your parking lot. That sped up and became the catalyst for them to put out an RFP that six or seven teams responded to.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

And previously it should be noted that that parking lot had tried to be developed unsuccessfully, and when they did RFPs before, they were non-responsive, right? So we instigated a process, and it speaks to the issue of there's a greater level of attention being paid to the south suburbs now.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

And so, and then they basically said, Well, we have this vacant building on Ridge Road right across the street from the metric, and we do anything with that. And we looked at, and it's a small poster stamp site, but we still figured out how to put 30 units in that uh site. So we had a 30-unit proposal and a 120-unit proposal. We didn't get selected as a Southland development, but as Bose says, it didn't matter. We we instigated this whole process that got another developer selected. And Abraham, who's not here with us, he brought to the table another proposal. Our proposal and Abraham's proposal made all of the other proposals better. Yes. Because we were looking at green space, we were looking at different, you know, innovative ways of dealing with the parking situation, and all the other developers actually started to put together better submissions because of it.

SPEAKER_04 32:16

They changed their submissions as a result of ours.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

They changed in their submissions through the process because of our presentations being made and the community responses to our presentations. So even though SDA and and PEC design didn't, we're not building that today, but we influenced what is going there. Um and we're looking down the street, you know, we're looking in Flossmore, we're looking at Olympia Fields, we're looking in Park Forest, Mattison, all of these T all of those squares are opportunities to bring, you know, 200 to 1,000 new residents in in the Southland. Well, I want to We're a bedroom community. A lot of these are bedroom communities, and there's a lot of negativity around or or should I say false sort of perceptions of what apartment buildings are. Well, these apartment buildings that we were proposing in Homewood would have been higher than my mortgage. You know, my five-bedroom house mortgage in Olympic Fields. These are not, you know, yesterday's apartment buildings. These are, and they are transitional real estate. It's hard for somebody to come from Chicago with a family and buy a four or five-bedroom home.

unknown 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Because you're in it. It's easier to come to our community in a two-bedroom apartment, fall in love with the community, and then invest in the housing stock. And that is that cycle that we need to have as well.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

I want to make sure we leave some time for questions. Um, I'll take personal privilege here because I want to tell a story about something that's possible, and that both the story that Edward just told and the mayor's vision are aligned with. I um I used to live in a uh place called uh New Rochelle, New York, which is right outside of New York City. It's actually only three express train stops from Midtown Manhattan, so it's fairly close. And probably by Midwestern standards, it doesn't look like a suburb, it looks like the city, but it's considered a suburb of New York. Um and it's the seventh largest city in New York, and it very much considered itself a bedroom community. It was very resistant to the idea that um people actually work in New York City and live here. They wanted it to be people live here and they work in the area. And so for decades, it refused to build apartment buildings and density in its downtown. Although, like is the case in University Park, there was already an existing train stop that exists that allows you to go in and out of New York City. Well, it took a little while, and I was there while this was happening, where the community led by the mayor at that time was able to really kind of think through this process differently and define themselves as someone, as a gr organization, uh city rather, who really was servicing New York City. Um and when they decided to go and create that density, they actually increased their population by 10,000 people in seven years. And what that did is it actually brought enough new tax revenue in that it actually stabilized and reduced taxes for the entirety of that area. And you can go read in the New York Times and read an article about this municipality, but it took a different thinking about what you are in relationship to everyone else and a vision. And it took 15 years to get there. But in that 15 time period, it substantially changed the population. It didn't change the nature of the location, but it created this density which allowed for all these new businesses, new restaurants, and other things. People no longer felt they needed to go into Manhattan to eat. They ate right downtown. They had all the diversity of the restaurants and things that they wanted because their downtown had enough population to actually get there. And I say that story because I believe that the Southland is right on the precipice of a similar sort of opportunity where all of a sudden there's going to be this growth that takes place. And frankly, places like University Park may look more like Naperville than they do today. That's the goal. Right? Um, and so with that, we want to open it up to questions. Um, there are microphones, well, there were microphones in the back, but um, we'll get my there are some microphones in the back. If anyone has any questions, um we'd love to hear from you uh now for anyone on the panel. Yes, ma'am. Uh right over there is Mike.

SPEAKER_05 36:50

Um what do you think has been the reason why um there hasn't already been more commercial development in the Southland? Or is it because maybe it just the people don't know, you know, like why did the businesses leave and why you know what I mean? Like the the transportation thoroughfares, they've always always been there. It's always been very family oriented. Like, what would be the what do you think would be the reason why the businesses that were there left, and then what do you think will attract new businesses to come in to fulfill this vision, this hundred-year plan?

SPEAKER_04 37:29

Well, I'll I'll I'll start if it's okay for you uh to say a couple of things that may be um obvious but um not always said out loud, right? So there is it been a decided effort to paint not just the Southland but the entirety of Chicago as just some horrible place to do business, you know, dangerous place to live. It's been a decided effort that's been done in the mainstream level. Um and I think that has played a substantial role in getting people to be wary of making the investment in this area. Um I've lived in nine cities in the U.S. and three overseas, right? So when people start talking about like whether it's the cost of taxes or the level of danger, I have personal lived experience about where is dangerous and where it's not. And I think the way that the area has been portrayed is um absolutely not um my lived experience. And I think that's played a role. It's not the only role, but it's one role. The second thing that people will talk about is the tax burden. So the tax burden is real relative to the area, but the tax burden is not necessarily real relative to the entirety of the United States. I I know everybody feels the burden, but trust me, if you lived on either coast, you'd be talking very differently about your taxes than where you talk right now. So remember, money is what they call fungible, meaning it goes anywhere. We're not competing just against the town next door, we're competing against Singapore, you're competing against Atlanta, right? All the people who could spend money can spend money in a lot of different places. So, yes, there is an issue relative to taxes, relative to this area, but relative to everywhere in the United States you can invest, there's still the possibility to invest here given the tax burden. Remember when Amazon went and did its HQ2 competition, if anybody remembers, they were going to create a second headquarters for Amazon. At 256 different communities applied to have that Amazon headquarters come. I worked on two of those proposals, one for the state of Rhode Island and one in Indiana. They chose the two highest tax districts almost that you could pick in the whole country to go to, right? So everybody says, well, I can't go there because of taxes. Well, do you think you think Amazon is stupid? Right? You think that's what it was? The reason they chose those places is because here's what you cannot fix with taxes workforce. You cannot fix access to resources, you cannot fix access to infrastructure, right? Those things have to exist in addition to ideally wanting to have lower taxes, but because we have that base here, it's here. What's happening that's different is they've already exhausted all those other easy places to go to. They went and got the hanging fruit where they could, and now they're having to actually reassess all the other places they can go to, and that's gonna change our our our efforts uh as we promote ourselves as a place for people to invest. That that's my first take. I'd be curious to your thoughts.

SPEAKER_08 40:33

I would also say that when people see large companies leave, like I don't want to say this community, but there's a route on Lincoln Highway. So a lot of people don't realize had this huge company that's been there for 20 years or plus. Well, some people don't understand about TIFFs. TIFFs are tax-incremented financing tools. So just look at yourself and say, well, if I've had a tax break for, say, 20 years, now my TIF, my tax break is over. So now instead of me getting no taxes for 20 years, now all of a sudden my TIFF rolls off, and now I have to start paying five and six million dollars in taxes. Well, I'm gonna look for another area that will give me the same incentives. So I would think that would be a great part of some of the reasons why you'll see these large corporations that's been here landmarks in communities for 20 plus years. So when their TIF expires, close to when it's expiring, if they're not gonna get a renewed TIFF or a TIFF extension, they're looking at other areas where they can get incentives that would lure them to that area. So that's what happens a lot in communities. Why you see businesses leaving certain areas.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Yeah, that's any other questions? So the real challenge though, I guess, is to let's not look back, let's look forward to figure out how we bring people back in. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 41:49

Because you can't make progress, you can't drive a car looking in the rearview mirror. You gotta look forward. That's a good analogy.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

I'm gonna use that one, man. You know. Were you waiting to ask a question, ma'am?

unknown 42:00

I am, but the gentleman over here was first.

SPEAKER_04 42:02

Oh, I can't see in the light. There it is.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

I'm always in the light boat.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

Yeah, yeah. I like that. I like that. I like that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Um not just shoutouts for Gunnar State University, but true open door collaboration that we want to do. And we're having a similar conversation Tuesday morning, which thank you all for coming again. But uh what I kind of see is a need for regionalism. And uh we love uh being in University Park, we start out our roots in part fours, and then uh obviously Governor State University has alums and uh uh students and faculty all across the region they stay here. Uh and uh yesterday I was glad to see so many associated. And in that view of regionalism, there's a question that might be naive to me that I just want to ask, because I see progress and the development. And I'm not I'm not from originally from Illinois. I see all that. I live in Bolingbrook. Bolingbrook has 76,000 uh residents, and you mentioned becoming a neighborville. I I I see this region if I took Governor State University selfishly and put 76,000 residents around there, I see that as that's that's just a one village 42 miles from here. Uh and so I see that it brings in all these communities acting as one to build out, and uh so then we have a regional perspective versus a municipality, and then we can grow those dense population and blockable areas strategically. So my naive question is is there a repository where all the Will County, South Coast County, North King Key, we know what economic development everyone's working on or need, and they're in one place so that if everybody received their yes, we could look at it and say, is that what we really want? Because to your point, we're the only collar county that could do whatever we want because of the land buildup at a lower cost.

SPEAKER_04 44:25

There isn't one place, but there is an effort underfoot. Um there's something called GSEP, which many of you uh may not be familiar with, but it's essentially a collection of all the collar counties and um the city of Chicago all working together to do exactly what you described, to kind of regionalize the thinking. It's been around for three years now, Irene, I think, give or take. Um, and it was a decided effort that, frankly, um President uh Tony Freckwinkle really spearheaded to do exactly what you said. Um, World Business Chicago kind of hosts the organization, um, but the intention is to make sure that we are sharing that information for all of the Calor Counties and for the City of Chicago. We get together on a quarterly basis so that we are sharing both um connections and information with one another. It leverages uh CMAP, which is the area um organization, and the RTA, which is the area transportation organization. And so there has been a decided effort in the last three years uh with the leadership of President Preckwinkle to do exactly that um and regionalize a lot of our efforts. It's moving in the right direction. It takes some time uh to do that work. Um, and for people to get comfortable in sharing that information, it's a practice. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Um, but I I believe that that is the path that the entire region is on. Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_06 45:59

Yes, so from now until 2035, we know that there are a lot of seniors every day, 12,000 seniors a day every day until 2035. We're gonna have just as many seniors as we have millennials, because that's that wealth that we transferred. Where do you see that senior population and housing fitting into this plan?

SPEAKER_04 46:32

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

I was just gonna say that's really important because the communities die if you don't continue that cycle, right? And so that is one of my arguments with some of the mayors in this area is that we have bedroom communities of medium to large scale homes in some of these that are just and and they're not transitioning because they want to tra they want to remain in the community that they've raised their family, but there is not an opportunity in this area to go into a retirement home or a senior live in. And there isn't the opportunity, as we talked about, these apartment buildings for the younger generation to step into the community. So those are two huge opportunities that we have to look at with how can we we need to get some of them out of their large homes and into retirement homes that they can enjoy and have services, so then that those homes open up for families, and then that cycle works properly. And I think what we don't have is that retirement opportunity, the the senior live-in opportunity, we don't have um enough of the the sort of transitional housing into that housing market, and so we have to think holistically, like, and that's a really good point because we're talking about the the first step into the community. We need to talk about the step to stay in the community.

SPEAKER_08 48:02

Oh, I'd love to downsize. I'd love to have senior housing in my community. I love it, I'd love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

I mean, look at all these golf courses, look at all these parks, look at this is a great place to have senior living homes and have opportunities that these facilities can overlook a county preserve, or they can you know have a walk-in path around the lake. They can have access to golf courses, they can, I mean, this this is we're prime for that.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

There is some creativity. So I've worked on a project where um, to your point, they created this transition. So what they did is that um in the um uh center of kind of the town they made, they essentially built apartment buildings that were senior housing where it was fully assisted living. And then they built on the bottom floors all the retail. They had restaurants and medical practices. The part of it was an office building, so you'd be able to take the elevator down to a doctor and see someone. Then they built a ring around that, which were all uh townhouses. So they were connected townhouses so that people would live in those townhouses and they'd be more mobile. They didn't need fully assisted, they were maybe partially assisted. And then they built a ring around that, which were single family homes that were for older people, but didn't need assistance at all. And that created the density in a community where you could, you know, be a senior, live in a single home, and when the single home became too much, move to a townhouse that was in the same neighborhood, where you could still walk to the doctor, and then when you needed fully assistance, you move into the apartment building where you have fully assisted and you were still in the same neighborhood. There are ways for us to be creative in that way. We have the land to actually do that in a lot of places, and that's a quiet way of you adding another 200 people to a community just like that, right? And keeping them in their homes. So we're gonna take two more questions before we go. I see two more people standing up.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

All right, so to transition well, uh, she's talking about the end, the last stage. I want to talk more about the the first stage and rentals and and younger people coming to communities that need the rentals they can't buy yet. There's been a lot of villages, I think, in the South End specifically, that have been completely against it and trying to stop people from having rental homes, etc. One, how do we combat that? And two, on the opposite side of that, how do what kind of balance should we aim for when it comes to houses, uh houses that people can afford plus rentals that people can afford, etc.

SPEAKER_08 50:32

I have a thought, but I don't leave it up but I don't want to dominate this either. Well, you you know what? I don't look at me personally, I don't look at it if a person owns the home or rents the home because everybody needs a place to live, right? And there I get a lot of residents say, well, we don't want renters in the community. That's nonsense, to be honest with you. As you say, you're a young man and you're gonna transition sooner or later. You want to have a place that's affordable for you right now to raise your family if you have a family, and then down the line, as your family grows, you want to have an opportunity to expand into a single family home or something like that. So rentals, renters pay taxes as well, whether they're doing it themselves or their landlords are. So I don't have a division between who rents and who doesn't, but I know there is a lack of rental opportunities in the Southland and University Park. I don't mind having an opportunity to create a senior housing campus and an opportunity for rentals, like the uh mixed use development right across from GSU. No problem whatsoever. So I don't think everybody is this closed mind. I think most people are confused about it because they just don't understand, and no one actually breaks it down to them and talks to them. So people are frustrated about rentals and stuff like that. Listen, because they just don't understand, and when people don't understand, it frustrates them and it gets them angry. So I think you're off to a good start.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

As a resident of the Southland, we have to vote in people that have a vision like you. Yeah. That's a big part of it. Because I've I've sat in a lot of offices with a lot, and I won't name them, they are scared of rental. They're they're either they want to keep they're proud of the fact that they have 86% home ownership versus rental, they're they're scared of the school system being invaded by people that are living in apartments. I mean, we have to get away from that. We have to understand that we need this sort of diversification of of residential opportunities from expensive to affordable, and we have to bring those all together. And I think that so it starts in our local elections to make sure that that mindset isn't isn't there.

SPEAKER_04 52:44

There is some education that's necessary too. One of the things when I'm trying to be a little quick, I tell mayors is that you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. So either you're gonna have a lot of trucks in your neighborhood, so you deal with your tax issue, or you're gonna have a lot of people. Um, but you can't get what you want and not have either. You gotta have one or the other. Um and it's just math, right? It's not a it's not an opinion, it's honestly just math. But I think that unfortunately doesn't get to the heart of the real question, which is what Edward was talking about, which is you actually need a population that is got young people, middle-aged people, older people, um, and they all have very different housing needs. And if you're not constantly kind of trying to attract people at each of these uh age groups, you actually have miss you've mismanaged your process. And you end up paying the price for that eventually, where all of a sudden home values don't go up because um everybody's you know passing at the same time and all these houses are on the market at the same time, and there isn't already a population who loves the community and says, yeah, I'll buy one of those homes because I already know the home. You're trying to convince people who've never been in the community to come. So it's a it's a great point. There's a lot of education that's underway. I think we're gonna move in the right direction. But I agree with you, Edward, that you know having mayors who have a little bit of a vision and are willing to invest in listening to the community but also educating the community goes a long way.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

And there's a worse problem to have in overcrowded schools. It's no demand for the schools. Yeah, and then they shut the schools down. These villages should understand that.

SPEAKER_07 54:21

Good morning.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Good morning.

SPEAKER_07 54:26

You mentioned going from a cliff onto the chest and actually had a conversation with my colleagues.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

You mind getting a little closer to the mic for a second?

SPEAKER_07 54:34

Yeah, they can hear me better. Okay, so me and my associates, we actually just recently had a discussion as far as living in the city versus moving to the suburbs. We want to move to the suburbs, but we are kind of like winging the taxes and what's offered.

SPEAKER_08 54:48

Can you give me a little bit more just an idea of what you mean when you say go from Flintstones to the Jetsons or your So when I talk about the Flintstones to the Jetsons, it's basically a mindset because a lot of my residents are saying, Well, we've never done this before, we've always done it this way, and sometimes they ask for change, but what does change actually look like? So they're afraid of the innovation and the things of that nature. So versus the city, I'll tell you a little bit about me. I grew up in the Chicago Housing Authority in Ida B, Wales in the 60s and in the 70s. So I understand that the city because there's so much access and so many activities going around in the city, but the Southland is starting to become that because now the jobs are more jobs in the Southland and people don't have to go north. So if you're in a decision point on whether you want to leave Chicago and couldn't come to the Southland, just do your homework a little bit. There are more opportunities and incentives, and you'll come out to find that you'll get a little bit of urban, a little bit of city, and a little bit of rural where you can walk out the door sometimes. If you like nature, you might see deer, you might see skunks, you might see possum, you might see coyotes, you might see raccoons, you might see falcons, you might see eagles, you might see hawks, you might see people riding horses down the sidewalk. You know, I just saw it this morning coming here. So when you're talking about relocating, I know it's a big challenge. I think the school systems are better. I think they're a lot more focused. I think there's a lot more technology. I think it's less challenging for some of our younger students who are just under peer pressure and don't know which way to go. I pray that the Southland doesn't get the mass of teen takeovers. So we have to make some adjustments in our mindset and just thinking about it. What's your biggest challenge about the Southland?

SPEAKER_07 56:39

So our when we were discussing taxes, right? Um, they're a little bit higher, which is okay for us, but we just like the amenities that we would get from the city. As Edward mentioned, it's like a college town. After college, you know, we're adults like we like certain things like shopping, you know, uh certain movie theater, certain types of T. Not saying that's not out there, but the types that we like now aren't we're not finding that out there in the suburbs. So that's I guess that was a part of my question. Like, do you all plan on bringing like those type of businesses?

SPEAKER_08 57:14

Oh my goodness. If the law is willing to be, we're looking for it. I'm gonna build a new city hall, um, new multi-purpose facility. Because one thing I don't understand about the Southland, when I grew up in Chicago, all the high schools had swimming pools in there. And in the Southland, there are very limited high schools, and I'm also a high school basketball official. So I get to go around to all the different high schools, and I say, well, wow, Oak Forest has a beautiful swimming pool, and this other school has a beautiful principle. Why didn't Crete, my homeschool, say, why didn't they have the vision to bring in the swimming pool and things of that nature? In Madden Park, I had a field house, I had the basketball courts, I had the King Drive bus, the Cottage Grove bus, I had the 35th Street Ale that can take me anywhere in the state. So those are the things that you're looking for, easy access and to create an environment where you, my whole thing is I don't like money leaving my community. And I'm gonna work harder and harder day by day because I believe that eight dollars should circulate eight times before it leaves the community one time. And I don't blame you because in my community, I don't have the things that I want to have now. I don't have the opportunity to go to the grocery store. I have to take my money out the community and go to my neighboring community, uh, Mattis and then pizza or the Jewel in South Chicago Heights or the Walmart or some area like that, or the Aldi's. So I'm with you on the same thing. It just takes a little bit of time because somehow, when you go through these different administrations, everybody does not have that forward thinking. I'm gonna put those things in place, and I understand your challenges because in Chicago everything is right there at your hand, and now it's kind of like where am I now? I'm in the woods.

SPEAKER_07 58:51

That was our big so that was a big discussion. Okay. I have one more question. Okay, we're gonna make it real quick when Holy Spirit. Really quick, really quick. Um, about the tip of exploration that you mentioned. When that happens and they decide to leave the community, so at one point we get all these jobs, when they come in, everybody gets a job, but if they decide to leave, then it's kind of like if you can't relocate to a different store, then people are losing jobs. So is there a way to kind of like help combat that? Like, do you all offer renewals? Is there any reason why you would not offer renewals?

SPEAKER_08 59:22

It always it always depends on the the leadership of your municipality because when like for instance, we just had a TIF 5 expire. Clorox is in based in University Park. It's the nationwide distribution facility. They're nowhere near interested in shutting down and moving because they love their position on the I-57 corridor, how easy accessible it is to from I-57 to get anywhere in the world. So you got to think about there are other incentives outside of TIFFs. There are enterprise zones, there are other benefits communities can give them. So you just there's so many different ways to try to maintain the companies that are in there. And some people just have their mind made up. Listen, I'm gonna get my TIF for 20 years, get my wealth, and no matter what they offer me, I'm got paid and I'm gone. So you can't you can't think about those people, but you think about retention, business retention. I would have a fit if Clorox left University Park. And since their tips expired, they don't mind paying the taxes at all whatsoever. So they're gonna pass it on to somebody else, the consumer, the next person, or anything else. So those are some of the challenges we all face and come up with things to retain the businesses once the tips do expire.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:33

Well, thank you for your questions, and thank you for a fantastic panel. We took a little bit longer, but it was worth it. Yeah, but it's all right. Yeah, it's worth it. Thank you.