Politics & Government

Village Grant to Help Fund Lower-Level Plaza at Downtown Heritage Center

Village OKs $85,000 to enhance exterior of space rented by park district for its new preschool and programs.

The back side of the Heritage Professional Center is going to get a facelift, with the village picking up half the $170,000 bill through its facade grant program.

Owner Carl Bryant has transformed the old First Midwest Bank building at 24023 W. Lockport St. into office space that's being leased by several groups, including , and the .

Typically, facade grants are awarded to improve and enhance a building exterior that faces out toward Lockport Street, but in this case the work will be done on the building's rear exterior, which faces a parking lot.

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Bryant's plan is to create a "subterranean plaza area" that will provide access and natural light to the lower level, a 7,000-square-foot space being leased for the park district for a preschool and adult/youth programs.

Because the improvements won't be seen from a public right-of-way, a standard to which previous projects have been held, village staff made no recommendation on the grant.

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Bryant said the benefit of bringing the park district downtown serves the general purpose of the facade grant program: providing incentives to business owners who help rejuvenate Lockport Street and give people another reason to come to the village's central district.

"It adds a vibrance to downtown that will be very similar to what the library does," he said.

The only thing the board balked at is Bryant's failure to seek multiple bids for the work he's proposed. The grant was approved with the proviso that he present additional bids to village staff and agree to go with the least expensive option.

Trustee Paul Fay voted against the grant but offered no explanation. Trustees Bill Lamb and Garrett Peck abstained from the vote, the latter because he is renting space there for an upcoming Illinois Senate race.

Facade grant money comes from the village's downtown Tax Increment Financing District, which holds in reserve a percentage of tax money paid by downtown businesses to be used to make improvements in the district.

Interestingly, the Heritage building looks nothing like the colonnaded bank building it was when built in 1915. Additions were made in 1959 and 1979, and its exterior "modernized."


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