Orland Park officials are considering the creation of three new tax increment financing districts in an effort to spur redevelopment on properties including the former Andrew Corp. headquarters and factory, according to village documents and Mayor Keith Pekau.
For now, Orland Park and developers are studying the issue and hired a consultant to determine if the three sites are eligible for TIF designation under state law.
Along with the long-vacant Andrew Corp. property, 10500 W. 153rd St., the village is studying possible TIFs to take in the closed Petey’s II restaurant at the southwest corner of La Grange Road and 159th Street, and the former site of Terry’s Lincoln-Mercury at the southwest corner of 143rd Street and John Humphrey Drive, Pekau said.
The Village Board voted in August to commit to working on possible redevelopment projects at the sites, and developers have already put money into escrow funds to pay some of the costs.
Orland Park has also tapped its TIF consultant, SB Friedman Development Advisors, to work on the TIF eligibility.
To be eligible under the state’s TIF statutes, properties have to be declared “blighted” due to factors such as decay, lack of redevelopment and falling property tax revenue.
In a TIF district, property taxes for all government bodies are frozen at levels at the time the TIF is created and any increase due to higher property values, the increment, is used to pay for improvements or incentives. TIF districts typically expire after 23 years but can be extended to up to 35 years
Other taxing bodies, such as school districts, don’t see increased property tax revenue from any development until after the TIF expires, and don’t have a share of any community’s sales tax money redevelopment might create.
Pekau said the properties are vacant or have little development, generating little in the way of property tax revenue.
The possible TIF districts lead to heated discussion at a recent High School District 230 meeting.
Board member Mohammed Jaber had said Orland Park officials should put a hold on any new TIFs, and said such new districts would “redirect millions of dollars in property taxes into ‘a fund of uncertainty’ that are earmarked for local schools, the Orland Park Library, the Orland Fire Protection District and the Village of Orland Park.”
Jaber was chided by District 230 Board President Lynn Zeder, who said he had spoken with media outside of his authority “on a matter in which the board is involved with sensitive proceedings with the village.”
Pekau said Thursday that “I would call them far from being proposals at this point.”
“They are a long way from being proposed,” he said.
Two developers are involved with the three properties, with Chicago-based JD Real Estate controlling the 38-acre property where Petey’s II stands as well as the 8.3 acres where the car dealership was located.
The firm, in December 2023, put $100,000 into two escrow funds to help pay for some costs associated with the feasibility studies, with the understanding the accounts may need to be replenished.
The former 74-acre Andrew Corp. property is controlled by Orland Park Lake Ventures LLC from South Holland, according to village documents. It put $85,000 into escrow to help pay for costs associated with studying possible TIF districts, documents from December show.
The Andrew property had been eyed for two different housing developments, but plans were scuttled due to environmental issues.
Andrew at one point was acquired by CommScope, which shouldered the burden of the financial cost of remediating the contaminants, a byproduct of manufacturing that took place over many decades.
Before the polluted soil was discovered and the economic recession arrived in 2008, a sale of the property, just north of the 153rd Street Metra station, was in the works. Homebuilder Kimball Hill planned the Cherry Ridge subdivision with 230 single-family homes, villas and townhouses.
In May 2019, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency told CommScope the land was sufficiently scrubbed to allow for commercial or industrial use but not for housing.
Pekau said creating a TIF district could pay for the environmental cleanup. He said that Orland Park Lake Ventures is paying for soil borings “to find out exactly what it is” as far as contamination.
Andrew Corp. had 600,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space at the site, demolished several years ago.
After a deal with Kimball Hill didn’t advance another buyer was lined up, but testing in late 2008 uncovered the soil contamination, and the property was pulled off the market. That land remains zoned for residential use, despite homes not able to be built there unless more extensive cleanup work is done.
Pekau said Orland Park Lake Ventures could do commercial development at the site, but said it could be cleaned to the point homes would be permitted by the state EPA, and he said the developer is planning homes on the property.
Equipment such as coaxial cable and antennas was manufactured for decades at the plant, and manufacturers, including Andrew, used chemicals such as trichloroethane to clean and remove grease from metals, but the use of those chemicals was phased out due to health concerns. Andrew had said it used trichloroethane to clean antennas, a process that was done outside the factory.
Early in the process, Andrew, in a letter to nearby residents, said there had been “little or no potential for the public to have extended contact” with the chemicals. Tests of soil taken from the yards of homes close by showed no contamination.
mnolan@southtownstar.com
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