Zoning probably has something to do with that.  Not everything, of course; the people make a big difference.  But the underlying zoning determines much of what you see:  dwelling units per acre, building line setbacks, building heights, etc.

So why are so few residents paying attention to the Comprehensive Plan meetings that are now underway — two so far, with almost another year to go?  The second meeting held March 23 was witnessed by just six residents, one of whom was an elected village commissioner.  Where were all the residents who protested about land-use issues on 63^rd Street, on Fairview Avenue, tear-downs, affordable housing, etc.?

If you are concerned about stormwater… or trees… or teardowns… you should be paying attention to this.

If you care about your neighborhood, you should be paying attention to this.

If you live within a block or two of a major commercial street – 63^rd Street, 75^th Street, Belmont Avenue, Fairview Avenue, Ogden Avenue – you should be paying attention to this, because the planning process could make recommendations that change the character of your neighborhood!

Not only should you be paying attention, you should be attending these Comprehensive Plan meetings and speaking up.  Because this committee is going to recommend the issues and publish the report that will affirm or change future Downers Grove zoning.  And your neighborhood!

The village and their consultants are doing a good job of making information available to you.  Take it.

Meeting agendas and minutes are online at the village web site (link here)

The consultants’ draft materials (link here)

Here’s what the consultants have provided to the committee so far (these large files may open slowly):

1. Introduction
2. Existing Plans, Studies and Reports
3. TCD3 Summary
4. Market Analysis
5. Existing Land Use, Development & Zoning
6. Community Facilities
7. Existing Transportation
8. Open Space and the Environment
9. Sub-areas

Interesting background reading.

If you care about your neighborhood, do you homework and show up/speak up at the Comprehensive Plan meetings.  The next one is Tuesday, April 27.

See you there.

John Schofield is a regular reader of DGreport and chairs the Coalition for Managed Redevelopment, a citizens group working “to maintain our rich cultural, architectural, and natural heritage while promoting growth and economic prosperity.”

Comprehensive Plans are supposed to be good for up to 10 years, in some cases even 20.  They’re not supposed to be static documents, instead being updated at regular intervals.  Our village Comprehensive Plan is 44 years old and unchanged.  There’s a saying in the planning profession I’ll paraphrase as I remember CP booster Martin Tully say: “If you fail to plan, in reality what you are doing is planning to fail.”

ITEM RES 00-04019 Comprehensive Planning Ad Hoc Committee authorizes the creation of a Comprehensive Planning Committee and appoints members to the committee.

A Comp Plan is the overarching document that sets course for where we go in the future.  Almost everything else flows from it.  Comprehensive planning is tied at the hip to the economic prosperity of our village, to traffic, zoning, everything.  Each section of the plan deals with particular elements, contains descriptions of existing conditions, a discussion of issues and general goals, and policies to guide actions. Each of the sections also looks at specific strategies along with recommended actions for implementing each strategy.

You can read our current 44 year old plan at the Library up on the second floor; 1965 predates computers and on-line documentation.  Last time I checked the parchment rolls were still there.

A good Comprehensive Plan will have fiscal benefits for us all, whether residents or businesses.  It’ll save taxpayers money and help preserve and grow what’s good about Downers Grove, so it’s critical to get the best plan we can.

Zoning Board of Appeals Chairman Bill White (also D99 BOE member) will chair the CPC.  ZBA member Marge Earl is also a member, as well as three Plan Commission members PC Chair Alan Jirik, PC members Audrey Hamernik and Greg Beggs, Transportation and Parking Commission member John Wendt, and two residents at large, Paul Jacobs…and me, Mark Thoman.

One of the big tasks of a Comprehensive Plan update is gathering information.  Remember last years TCD3 was all about gathering information?  Now that will be a crucial source of information about what the community wants to see in an updated Comprehensive Plan.

I know some of the other nominees, and I think it will go well, I hope it will go well, and I will do what I can to help it be so.

-Mark Thoman

Everybody missed it?

Pick a local business; any one — about 80 folks involved with them protested the approval of ATI taking 10,000 square feet of prime retail space at reduced rental rates any one of them would gladly pay.  Many of those local businesses are owned by people who live here.  They bank here, sometimes locally.  They buy groceries, and dine out, and have a beer or glass of wine here.  They attend local events.  They belong to local business groups that promote local business.  The rent they pay sometimes goes to landlords who live here, who in turn do the same things the other business owners do.

National and regional businesses expanding into local markets diverts the local money stream away from the community, where it is spent on large capital expenditures, overseas goods and all too frequently inflated executive salaries. As the money leaves town, an important economic source of funds leaves with it: recirculated income.

John Maynard Keynes first coined the term “Local Multiplier Effect” in his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, to describe this phenomenon that creates local money movement that passes from local hand to local hand over and over, on average at least three times before leaving the community.

Pick Anderson’s Book Store and compare that to Barnes & Noble Booksellers.  Both fine book stores, both staffed by able and willing employees.  Spend $100 dollars at Anderson’s, and about $45 dollars gets spent on things-and I have no idea if these are all applicable to Anderson’s-like accountants/bookkeepers, advertising, legal services, possibly office supplies and a plethora of other expenses.  That same $100 at Barnes and Noble-again a fine shop-and about $15 dollars gets spent locally.  The remainder leaves town for the corporate offices.

It adds up.  Some communities actively advocate a Business To Business (B2B) Import Replacement program to link businesses with local suppliers and services.

Back to ATI.

Council took the short view that $50,000 in property tax income a year was better then waiting for the same property tax income plus an estimated $26,000 a year in sales tax at some later date.  To boot, finishing up the Acadia on the Green Redevelopment Agreement hinged upon approving the ATI deal.  So in they go, and local residents will be referred there, possibly instead of to the Good Sam Wellness facility, or to any of several existing local physical therapy businesses.

In the former, ATI revenue leaves town immediately for the regional offices. One hopes some jobs for locals come with the business.  Patients and workout buffs probably will not even make payments there, instead being billed; few local services being used to keep money in the community.  Council harped on the fact ATI users would be eating downtown, and shopping downtown.  Given ATI expects their prime time to be before 5am and 8am, and after 6pm when bars and restaurants are open, it appears the opposite would be true, people will be going to ATI instead of to local shops and dining.  That $70 therapy visit or that $25 a month membership money never gets a chance to do much inside Downers Grove.  Mostly it just leaves.  Add on to the local money departing, outside insurance funds never returning into town.

In the latter, at the other smaller physical therapy businesses, or at God Sam’s Wellness Center, all of the benefits of the Local Multiplier Effect (LME) come into play.  That insurance payment that left the community comes back to a local business, who passes it on to another local business.  That dimes the users drop at the Park District or the YMCA to feel the burn circulates around so others can share the wealth by receiving and in turn using the money.  Both of those groups use the money for other programs and activities.  The money sticks around and does some more good for the community.

The village needed to determine whether ATI would add value to the downtown, or whether they should wait longer and see if they might get retail to fill the spot.  It’s a tough choice.  The EDC is tasked with finding warm bodies to fill cold space.  When EDC President Greg Bedalov entered into talks with ATI, they took a look around and locked their sights on the middle of AOTG building #1, which is the choicest of the AOTG prime street level space.  Thousands of commuters pass by there every weekday; hundreds of Egg Harbor customers see it, and thousands of cars drive by every day.  TCF Bank?  Charles Place?  No thanks, ATI knew where it wanted to be, and that was at DG’s “Grand Central Station”.  It meets all three real estate requirements: location, location, location.

Some might say council went with “git ‘er dun”, but it looks like staff and council made their decision based on a cost/benefit analysis, which is usually informal.  Letting a property lie unused for three years is about the maximum if you are looking at the short term of ten years, and a difference of $50,000 or $76,000/year in revenues to the village.  If you are considering the full 20 years of the potential lease, the break-even point is six years.  If you are looking at the life of the building for how it can contribute to village revenues, it never makes fiscal sense to allow a non-sales tax revenue generator into a street level building in the CBD.  Everyone knew that three years ago, but as they say, times change.

Net Present Value

“It is a standard method for using the time value of money to appraise long-term projects. Used for capital budgeting, and widely throughout economics, it measures the excess or shortfall of cash flows, in present value terms, once financing charges are met.”

In another post I mentioned Net Present Value, or NPV.  Sometimes it’s called Net Present Worth.  It’s a concept most people on council with one exception, might have no experience with.

Here’s some full disclosure; one of my jobs due diligence requires me to do the NPV math on a sale or purchase.  I cheat nowadays: I use a couple different computer calculators that do the math for me so I can just plug in different variables and see what the results yield.  This is not an exact methodology, but it usually works, especially for long-term investments.  Long-term planning if you will.

In this case, the village needed to determine whether ATI would add value to the downtown, or whether they should wait longer and see if they might get retail to fill the spot.  Using NPV calculations isn’t quite germane for the village, unfortunately.  Long story short, given the expectation of revenues and the revenues already lost, given a 20 year time frame the village could wait four more years if they could know for certain the space would be filled with retail, which they can’t know.

The guy on council most intimate in knowing how to value real estate deals is Waldack.  Deal with it; he knows his numbers.  He knows how to value real estate, transactions, and account for variables related to whether or not a given deal makes sense from a hard math POV.

Past that, whether to keep fishing or cut bait is anyone’s guess.  I called my buddy, a pseudo-retired economist who taught at U of I, and got his response: “Ask ten expert economists what will happen and you should get at least 30 answers all based on what has happened in the past.  Makes for great conferences, by the way, always someone to discourse with.  Economists are best analyzing what happened, not specifically seeing the future; that involves bones, blood, entrails, and cauldrons.  Candles help set the mood…  Listen to what Warren Buffet thinks will happen.  He’s been more right than any economist in predicting future markets, and the economy is tied to the market.   Buffet says in 2012 or 2013, everything will be fine.”

It’s a tough choice.  The village sank about $7.2 million into the AOTG deal with New England Builders, another outside company.  In return the village determined that street level retail was something to be desired, and wrote a 90% minimum into the RDA with New England Builders.  That deal is now done and gone, as is the $7.2 million-NEB is an outside company, and most if not all of the bond money left town just a surely as if it were spent at Barnes & Noble instead of Anderson’s.

So much for long-term planning in the CBD?  Maybe, maybe not.  Times changed for the worse, and they can change again for the better.  It’s ironic that for all the support council has shown for the concept of shopping local-and they are absolutely correct on the importance, even the need right now-that they lost sight of not just solid long term comprehensive planning, but that what the village also lost in the ATI deal was the Local Multiplier Effect.  It wasn’t just settling for the short-term gain of $50,000/year in property taxes instead of the “maybe” of an extra $26,000 in sales tax.  It also includes the certainty that 85% of the money that goes into ATI never comes back out into the community; it leaves town.

Editor’s note: Tim Canning of the Lemon Tree posted this note this morning.

Hi friends-

The Lemon Tree is coming! Thank you all for your comments. The project slowed down due to business terms with the lease and binding contract deals with Michael’s. I can assure you that all business issues have been sorted out.

Bill White — great idea with the “Peapod pick-up only”! I will bring up your clever idea at our meeting this afternoon. I also appreciate your comments concerning the parking… We are working closely with the village to maximize the accessibility of parking spaces on Burlington.

Our Web site is near completion (www.lemontreegrocer.com). We would love to hear everyone’s suggestions and comments on this blog or through our website. The Lemon Tree wants to know what you want from your downtown market!

Thank you all! And the Lemon Tree is coming… Please sit tight.

Tim Canning

The first chart on the right shows DG Sales Tax Revenues for 2008 broken down by category.  If you click on the image you will get a larger easier to read version.  1 out of every 4 sales tax dollars comes from either car sales, or gas sales.  You’ve seen the difference along Ogden Avenue this year.  Luxury Motors south lot, once jammed with sales tax revenue producing autos, had one lonely car when I drove by yesterday.  A planned expansion and redevelopment for the used car dealer on the west side is on hold.  Some of the dealers look to be doing fine, and Zielger is ramping up their operations, so not all is bleak.

We have tough competition from Woodridge’s Seven Bridges developments, and from the Promenade Bolingbrook Town Center, and from Lombard’s aggressive expansion at Yorktown.  Compare those to two DG retail centers on the northeast and northwest corner of 75th and Highland (Main), and you get the idea.  Our neighbors might not draw DG shoppers away, but they’re keeping more of their own shoppers at home with newer, nicer shopping areas.

There’s constant talk of how ratty 63rd and Woodward looks, but the sales tax potential for DG is at 75th & Highland, along Butterfield Road., and along Ogden Avenue.  It’s a matter of scale and size.  Our big retail areas could use some refreshing, updated layout, all kinds of thing that just need money and a good economy to do.  The village staff, the EDC and the COC are working on it.

This shows where the hurt is.  Our sales tax revenues have slipped back to 1995 levels.  As our neighbors have ramped up efforts to modernize and develop new shopping, the results are having an impact.  Our main areas that generate sales tax revenue are behind the times, and as you can see, behind the curve.

Bolingbrook in particular has been very aggressive and successful in bringing in mega-box retailers.  Along Weber Road they have a Builder’s Square and a Lowe’s within spitting distance of each other (and a Menard’s on 53).  Along Boughton is the Ikea.  Lombard has revamped and built out Yorktown, adding a restaurant centric mix of stores along with a new Hyatt that, when I drove by a couple night ago, looks as empty as Building #3 at Acadia on the Green (which I hear is selling).

This graph was not in the EDC report.  Comparative sale tax numbers tell the story.  Everyone felt the slowdown last year, with Bolingbrook’s rapid expansion over the last five years leaving them way ahead on revenues.  Lombard added a “Yorktown Tax” near the end of 2007 that’s valid to include.  the dashed line shows that revenue subtracted.  Woodridge has incremental growth, as Seven Bridges’ build out slow-down starting in 2008, flattening their revenue growth curve.

Can the EDC, the Village, the Chamber of Commerce, and Downtown Management bend the curve back up?  Bedalov’s presentation contained the classic SWOT analysis that sorted out the situation, and he touched on some areas that the village may want to consider moving forward, which would give DG a wider choice of options to deploy when marketing the village to the commercial and manufacturing sectors:

Business Enterprise Zones (BEZ): Begun in 1982, the lllinois Enterprise Zone Program, like a TIF District, is designed to stimulate economic growth and neighborhood revitalization in economically depressed areas of the state.  Unlike a TIF District, the mechanisms are state and local tax incentives, regulatory relief, and improved governmental services. There aren’t any in DuPage County. Ellsworth Business Park might be an area that could benefit from becoming a BEZ, making it more attractive to new business, and helping existing concerns already located there.

Business Improvement Districts (BID): In one sense we already have a BID, and that’s the DMG.  The Downtown Management Group and the Village cooperate to collect funds, and a Board of Directors direct activities to enhance and improve the District, like the marketing efforts DMG Director Linda Kunze works on with Bedalov to attract business to the CBD, and the first central garbage collection area built this year.  The BID is a very flexible tool and could be used to tackle areas like the Hines Lumberyard, Rogers along the tracks from Pershing to Fairview, and the aforementioned south side shopping centers at 75th and Highland.

Facilitated property acquisition and transfer: This would emphatically not be anything like the sucker-punch the village took  over AOTG.  The village can continue to deploy it’s Bond Cap Authority to help create some risk-free source funding for private businesses to the tune of about $4 million each year, and the EDC is already ramping into a full court press finding takers for open space, and putting together incentives in coordination with village staff.  The two new grocers coming to town are an example of that creative process.

Staff comes up with another targeted

Sales tax at a grocer is a variable thing; basic foodstuffs have a very low rate, packaged goods and other items have higher rates.  The terms of the sales tax rebate agreement include the following:

Sales taxes from Michael’s Fresh market shall be rebated to the Lemon Tree in the following manner:
1) 37.5% of total sales taxes collected up to $15 million in annual sales
2) 50% of total sales taxes collected in excess of $15 million in annual sales

• Lemon Tree, Inc. agrees to operate a specialty grocery store at the Acadia location which offers, at a minimum: prepared foods, packaged foods, fresh meat, fresh produce, fresh bread, a delicatessen, and an outdoor dining area.
  
• Both Michael’s and the Lemon Tree must remain open at their current location to qualify the Lemon Tree to receive rebate payments
• The duration of the agreement shall be ten years with the option to extend with Village Council approval for two additional consecutive five-year terms.

There is an initial 50% rebate period that will run through December 31st, 2010, that will help with some of the start up costs of getting established and known.

As it stands, there will be parking changes to accommodate loading cars with groceries for those who drive there, although that kind of runs contrary to the idea of a walkable downtown grocer.

The Lemon Tree will take up about 6,000 square feet at the east corner of Mochel and Burlington in AOTG building #3.  It will have, in addition to a full grocery, prepared foods and an outdoor cafe space for people who want to eat there purchase right there.

The Lemon Tree will also be one of two new liquor license businesses, class P-O-2 , that  allows for off-premise sales of all liquor and on-premise consumption of beer and wine at the same location, so you’ll be able to carry out your six pack, or have a bottle of wine to go with the prepared foods eaten there (the mega-Binny’s coming this fall up at the closed Circuit City location is the other P-O-2 license applicant).

Other Michael’s roast chickens, cook up a variety of ethnic dishes, even make fresh sushi, so their cafe could be a very interesting eclectic addition to downtown dining.

As council has already expressed their desire to move this forward, it should sail through to approval.   Anyone know where you can buy those wire roller baskets?

Michael’s Fresh Market might double down on DG.

In addition to presenting their quarterly reports to council, the EDC & DMC ran a works in progress up the flagpole, looking for preliminary council head nods or not.

EDC had been working with Michael’s Fresh Market on taking over the empty Dominic’s down by 75th Street, but couldn’t make a fit that met the requirements of the vetting process and the needs of the grocer.  EDC President Greg Bedalov is keeping at it and enlisted Linda Kunze of the Downtown Management Corporation to expand the proposal and see if maybe they could fill two spaces with one grocer.

They asked: if Michael’s Fresh Market would be willing to open a smaller store downtown, might council would be willing to bring the whole project up to the dais for discussion?  Tonight, rather than present a done deal, they brought a works in progress to council to let them know what they are trying to do.  EDC President Bedalov said he would forward further details as they become available.

Council was uniformly receptive to seeing a project they could discuss.  As new Commissioner Bob Barnett said, “I can’t imagine why we would not look at it.”

Added Sandack, “We’re going to do everything we can within reason to make it happen.”

A downtown grocery store has been repeatedly identified by residents as a high priority need. And despite what a commenter suggests, the downtown market under discussion would not be asmaller version of the 75th Street store.

The CBD store  is envisioned as a specialty grocery featuring  a deli counter, butcher shop, fresh produce, baked goods flower stall and chef-prepared meals and sandwiches to go, as well as the more traditional components of an in-town market.  Cooking classes and other amenities are also be part of the plan.

As for concerns about parking: The proposal calls for some 30- to 45-minutes parking stalls to be carved out, but even more conveniently, to establish two dedicated loading zones.

That means shoppers will be able to make their purchases, leave them at the store while they retrieve their car from the parking garage or other location, pull into a loading zone and wait for the store personnel to load their groceries for them.

Sound like they’ve thought of everything. When’s the Grand Opening?

Greg Bedalov of the Downers Grove Economic Development Corporation and Linda Kunze of the Downers Grove Downtown Management Corporation will offer up their respective quarterly reports to council Tuesday.

The DG Economic Development Corporation report shows DG is weathering the current economic malaise about as well as can be hoped for, and suffering less than the surrounding area.  EAV growth has slowed to a crawl through 2008 as expected.  Although Home Rule has softened the blow, Sales Tax revenues have declined around 51/2%.  Could be worse, as most other major areas took a bigger hit.

The EDC derives it’s funding from the Hotel Tax, which has dropped over 10% the last two years.

The DG Downtown Management Corporation news is a little brighter despite some still empty Acadia On The Green retail space.  Occupied square footage of retail, mostly restaurants and salons (not saloons) has increased after several quarters of small decreases, while rents have steadily dropped from an average $23/sq.ft to about $18.50/sq.ft.  Those numbers are listed as triple net (no taxes, no utilities, no nothing or something like that).  Those dropping rents are not good news for building owners, but may attract more renters.  Better something than nothing.

As far as office space downtown DG is almost exactly where it was in 2006: 92% occupancy, which isn’t bad (it’s better than the village as a whole), but isn’t great.  In this day, call that a win.  Office rents spiked after steady to declining rates, rising to an average of $27.65/sq.ft.  Interesting to note occupancy rates were higher (up to 97%), when average rents were lower (as low as $21.90 in Q4 2008).

EAV has shot up as a direct result of buildings being completed, notably Acadia On The Green, 4929 Forest, and the half-built The New 922 project.

The DMC gets it’s operating funds from a downtown Special Service Area (SSA) District overlay where the businesses themselves provide the funding.

PowerPoint slide presentations for the EDC are here.

PowerPoint slide presentations for the DMC are here