First Night Prepares for Their Rainy Day with  Evanstonopoly

Environmental Association Presents Awards

Proposal for 1600 Foster St. Gets a Cool Reception from City Staff

Stewardship of the Urban Forest

A Circle of Peace at Fountain Square

Plan Commission OKs Live-work Lofts on Greenwood Street

Some Developers Oppose Affordable Housing Mandates

(continued)
First Night Prepares for Their Rainy Day with  Evanstonopoly
First Night Evanston developed Evanstonopoly, a customized version of the 1930s board game Monopoly, to ensure that the show will go on at their annual New Year's Eve celebration.

Hot off the production line in mid-December, Evanstonopoly promises to entertain players with a mix of financial dealing and local color.  And since all profits from sales will accrue to what the board calls its "Blizzard Fund," the 13-year-old First Night will be guaranteed of going forward – even if severe weather delivers a blow to ticket sales.

When the First Night board told people they planned to develop a Monopoly-type game as a fundraiser, a chorus of doubters swore they could never do it, says board member Doris Rudy.  The board took it as a challenge.

On Dec. 10, less than a year after conceiving the idea, board members began delivering the game to more than 13 Evanston venues in time for holiday sales.  Payment from the sponsors who bought spots on the game board covered production coasts, says Ms. Rudy, leaving all $38 per game for First Night. 

From their first look at the game's box, buyers will recognize their hometown in Evanstonopoly.  First Night selected local artist Brian Bourke to draw the cover panorama, rather than using production company staff.  "He knows Evanston," says Ms. Rudy of the artist.  Mr. Bourke chose local icons for the box, capturing the City's essence with the lake, the lighthouse, Evanston Township High School, the library and the el.

Inside is a board only vaguely reminiscent of the Parker Brothers game.  Ms. Rudy points out that there are no jail or railroads, and that activity cards have local references like "Advance your token to the Evanston RoundTable; enjoy what's new in Evanston."

The process of developing the game began last winter, when a consultant contacted First Night festival manager Corinne Pierog about using a game as a fundraiser.  That company was not a good fit for First Night, she says.  So she persued what she calls a "serpentine route" to KATY Consultants of Manitowoc, Wis., with whom the board was very pleased.

After meeting with the husband and wife team, says Ms. Rudy, First Night did a mass mailing to "a huge mailing list" of potential sponsors.  They had almost no response.  In early summer they made some 400 phone calls and personal visits.

It took real estate pro Ms. Rudy, says Ms. Pierog, to enter in late summer as the deal-closer.  Ms. Rudy warms to the tale, describing transactions with potential sponsors that were reminiscent of what she calls "the trading game" of Monopoly. 

Prices for board spaces ranged from $1,950 to $7,000, she says.  Ms. Rudy says the board was committed to selling spots to local entities rather than to "big corporations who aren't concerned about Evanston."  To entice an array of businesses and non-profits, she began offering options like shared spaces.  The last two spaces sold to two businesses that contacted Ms. Rudy just days before all sponsors gathered in the lobby of the Hotel Orrington to proof the copy on Nov. 14.
Tokens were also for sale.  When it came to the last two, Ms. Rudy put together a coalition of private individuals to purchase a lighthouse token in a friend's memory, and First Night Evanston paid for the final token – a recycling bin. 

At 7 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, a shipment of 3,504 games arrived at the City loading dock.  Ms. Rudy had mapped the route of the semi truck to make sure it cleared the viaducts.  A crew of five volunteers was on hand.  Counting and re-counting proceeded ("We all got different numbers the first time," says Ms. Rudy) until the tallies matched.

Then the First Night board delivered 447 games to sponsors, the first going to the owners of Bennison's Bakery.  "You can't get much more local than Bennison's," says Ms. Rudy.

The game is for sale at a number of small businesses listed on the website www.firstnightevanston.org as well as at the Evanston Chamber of Commerce and, on New Year's Eve, at First Night's downtown Chase Bank location.  Citing the spaces for Marilyn Price Puppets and the Harris Bank as the opposite ends of the spectrum, Ms. Rudy says, "It's the nicest game I've seen.  [The game board] is truly representative of Evanston, not a top-down [version]."

On Dec. 30 families can see what the fun(d) is all about by purchasing a button (adults, $14; kids, $8; 5 and under, free) to partake in festivities all over town.  Featured this year at Illinois' largest First Night celebration will be the likes of a 40-member gospel group; the Mah classical piano duo; the Mathew Skoller blues band; and the Chicago premiere of "The Journey of Sir Douglas Fir," an award-winning family play.

When the First Night fireworks end (this year at the lake at Sheridan Road and Church Street) and January settles in, there will be a fresh batch of activities centered on the game, including pay-to-play Evanstonopoly tournaments, says Ms. Rudy.Like the First Night celebration itself, Evanstonopoly has already exceeded expectations. 

"Evanston is that kind of place," says Ms. Rudy.  "We do things people don't expect us to do."

back to top

Some housing developers say Evanston's proposed affordable housing program would raise prices and could kill off new development in the community.

"I think it will put Evanston in a disadvantageous position versus other communities," Tim Anderson of Focus Development said in response to a City survey.

He said developers would have to build the price of the subsidy into the cost of new market-rate units, and that would create "more polarity" in housing prices.
Kenneth Sproul of SMB Development said that if people decide there is a need for affordable housing, "then we the people should all share in the burden of providing it through public funds.

"I believe this is not an issue that the majority of the electorate supports," Mr. Sproul said, so special interests work to try to force a small segment of society – developers – to pick up the tab.
David Hovey of Optima Development said, "Developers should contribute their fair share to new affordable housing." But he added that other players in the development process – from banks to realtors – should contribute too, as should the community at large through real estate transfer tax and permit fee increases.

"Historically we have provided a wide range of pricing to a wide range of buyers," Mr. Hovey said, adding that reducing the price of subsidized units in future projects would mean increasing the average cost of the rest.

He suggested those price increases could be avoided if the City gives developers incentives by increasing the density of developments – permitting more units, greater height and other adjustments.

Brad White of LR Development said he thinks new affordable housing is needed, and he said the proposed 10 percent requirement for subsidized units "is a fair number." But he said the City should participate in the program by offering zoning or fee waiver incentives.

Special meeting
Aldermen have scheduled a special Planning and Development Committee meeting for 7 p.m., Jan. 5 to consider inclusionary housing proposals that have been under consideration by the Housing Commission for several years.

While many North Shore communities are under State mandate to increase affordable housing because less than 10 percent of their housing units are affordable to people making less than the median income, 26 percent of Evanston's housing units were affordable as of the 2000 census.
But Carol Balcolm of the Citizens' Lighthouse Community Land Trust says a new study from Business and Professional People for the Public Interest shows that only 17 percent of the housing stock here is affordable now.

Rising prices at low end
Real estate transfer tax data analyzed by the Community Development Department suggest that housing prices in Evanston are rising fastest at the low end of the market.

The price of the cheapest one-quarter of all single family and town homes sold rose 18 percent from 2003 to 2004, while the price of the most expensive quarter was up just 1 percent.

For condominiums, the price of the cheapest quarter rose 13 percent, while the most expensive quarter went up 5 percent.

Targeting planned developments
The affordable housing proposal would affect all planned developments that include 25 or more housing units.

City staff have proposed that if developers do not include at least 10 percent affordable housing within their projects, they contribute $40,000 for every 10 units in their project to an affordable housing fund.

At the Planning and Development Committee's last meeting, some housing activists and aldermen suggested raising that contribution to as much as $100,000.

A number of aldermen also suggested trying to target the program to benefit public employees.

back to top

(continued)
Environmental Association Presents Awards
Four students received recognition for their volunteer work at the Ecology Center, and the Rotary Club of Evanston was honored with the Charlotte Omohundro Environmental Service Award for its maintenance of the International Friendship Garden in the Ladd Arboretum.

Environmental Educators Ellen Fierer and Karen Taira presented volunteer awards to Naeem Davis, Bella Celigene, Brian Cullen and Katie Fisher. Naeem and Bella were members of the EEA's critter crew, feeding and taking care of the animals in the Ecology Center, during their middle school years.

Naeem's affinity for animals was apparent, said Mr. Taira, as he could often be seen with a gerbil in his pocket or a snake around his neck. Bella not only took care of the animals but also mentored another critter crew student, Ms. Taira added.

Eighth-grader Brian volunteered last summer in the Ecology Center's "Wildflower" program for young children, said Ms. Fierer, coming to camp every day to work with the young children. Katie, now a junior at Evanston Township High School, served as an intern at the Ecology Center in connection with her honors biology class at ETHS and worked as a summer camp counselor in the Center's summer eco-camp at Oakton School, said Ms. Fierer. She added that Katie was a "fabulous lightning bug" at the Center's Halloween walk.

Rotary Club members accept the Charlotte Omohundro Environmental Service Award for their decades of work on the Rotary Friendship Garden in Ladd Arboretum. Left to right: Gordon Guth, John  Hamal, Dick Peach, Phil Klein, Linda Lutz, Leslie Sevcik and Shelley Peach. Ms. Omohundro is at far left.

Gordon Guth, a member of both the EEA and the Rotary Club of Evanston, highlighted Rotary's nearly 50-year relationship with the Ladd Arboretum, named in honor of Rotarian Edward Ladd. The Club maintains the International Friendship Circle, modeled after the Rotary wheel and planted with three seasons of perennial plants and flowers.

This year, Shelley Peach, wife of Rotarian Dick Peach, remodeled and replanted the circle, and the club added an underground irrigation system and a stone friendship circle around the garden wheel, said Mr. Guth. Referring to the rows of apple trees between the friendship circle and the berm upon which an American flag flies, he said the trees represented the Rotary clubs in existence around the world when the arboretum began in the 1960s. He said the trees would be rededicated when a Rotarian from that country visited the arboretum, bringing a sample of native soil – something now prohibited by various laws.

back to top

back to top

Darrow Corners: Affordable Apartments Coming to 5th Ward
By Beth Demes

Among the first projects in the recently created West Evanston Tax Increment Funding (TIF) District may be a 27-unit affordable apartment building, which will be developed and managed by the non-profit organization, Housing Opportunities Development Corp.

The proposed four-story brick masonry structure, designed by Weese Langley Weese Architects, will replace two existing dilapidated homes on the northwest corner of Church Street and Darrow Avenue. HODC has held community meetings on the new project at 1805 Darrow Ave. and will present it to the Evanston Plan Commission on Jan. 11.

"I am very much in support of the project," Alderman Delores Holmes, 5th Ward, told the RoundTable. "I want to make sure that there is affordable housing for residents in the Fifth Ward. By affordable, I mean not for those residents who are earning the average median income for Evanston, which I believe is about $60,000, but for those people who are making between $20,000 and $40,000 per year."

Darrow Corners Apartments, as the project is named, will offer a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with rents that will vary between $500 and $950 per month, depending on the size of the unit and the income of the household.

The apartments will have spacious, open designs with a work island dividing the kitchen from the living area. Kitchen appliances will include the standard ranges and refrigerators, as well as dishwashers. The apartments will be hard-wired for high-speed Internet access, and some units will have private balconies.
The apartments will be on the second through fourth floors. A community room, for use by building and neighborhood residents, will be on the first floor. The first floor will also house the offices of the Evanston Community Development Corporation, a group of local leaders who came together nearly three years ago to help develop a revitalization plan for the troubled west side neighborhood. ECDC will operate youth job training and business development programs from its first floor space in the building.

HODC will provide homebuyer counseling, including classes in finance, budgeting and property maintenance, for residents in the building who may be interested in eventually owning their own home. Darrow Corners Apartments residents will have an opportunity to purchase their units after the building has been up and running for 15 years. The reason for the 15-year period is that one of the financing mechanisms that HODC will be using requires that the building remain affordable rental housing for a minimum of 15 years; after that time, the building may be converted to condominiums.

HODC is a not-for-profit corporation established to foster and create affordable housing throughout Chicago's northern suburbs. It presently owns and operates four other affordable rental housing developments in Evanston: the Claridge Apartments (319 Dempster St.), the 743 Brummel Apartments and two small rental buildings on Jackson Street and Dewey Avenue.

HODC plans this affordable apartment complex for Church Street and Darrow Avenue.

Proposal for 1600 Foster St. Gets a Cool Reception from City Staff
By Bill Smith

It will be back to the drawing boards for developers after their plan to build 40 to 50 townhouses on the former Bishop Freeman Company property at 1600 Foster St. got a cool reception from City staff last Wednesday.

A developer has proposed a gated community of 50 townhomes for 1600 Foster St. by the Auto Doctor.

Gary Levitas of Northfield Properties and Tom Litwicki of Regency Development proposed three- and four-story townhouses in a gated community design.

Community Development Director James Wolinski said, "We're not real big on restricted areas. I don't think anybody is interested in a development that looks isolated from the neighborhood."

The developers did get a favorable response when they said they were talking to the owner of the Robinson bus yard east of their site about incorporating his land into the project.
"Bus parking has not been a favorite of the neighbors," Mr. Wolinski said.

City Planner Dennis Marino said the Robinson land would make it possible to restore the street grid severed by the old railroad right of way used for bus parking.

Then residents could enter the new development from Emerson Street as well as Foster.

Mr. Marino suggested a mix of housing types on the site, including single family homes and condo units.

The neighborhood is mostly single family, but the property borders a new mid-rise senior citizen housing building on Emerson and is across Foster from the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center.

"There is interest in redeveloping the site," Mr. Wolinski said, "and we don't think industrial uses are coming back."
Mr. Litwicki said their preliminary plan calls for townhomes with between 2,000 and 2,400 square feet of living space, priced between $500,000 and $600,000.

back to top

A Circle of Peace at Fountain Square

Joan Baez, Donovan, Phil Ochs – voices of war protest from the 1960s – rang out through the cold night as the North Shore Anti-war Coalition held a candlelight circle of peace on Dec. 13. The candlelight vigil marked the 1,000th day of the war in Iraq. About 40 persons walked the perimeter of Fountain Square, holding candles until the arctic gusts prevailed. Dickelle Fonda, one of the organizers of the vigil, said, "The holiday season is an appropriate time to express our longings for peace and to offer members of our community opportunities to work for peace."

Some of those attending the vigil were veterans of the 1960s peace movement; others were still in college. Laura Nyman Montenegro and her husband, Michael, have attended several vigils. "I'm 53 years old, and I don't know how many of my Christmases have been spent under the shadow of war," said Mr. Montenegro. "It's near the holidays again, and I can't celebrate when our so-called representative government believes it is all right to engage in torture."

The coalition met last week with Congresswoman  Jan Schakowsky to thank her for her support of the Murtha resolution and discuss other matters related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

back to top

Despite objections from a neighbor, the Plan Commission has voted unanimously to turn a vacant industrial building at 2100 Greenwood St. into 26 live-work condominiums.

Developers plan to adapt a warehouse on Greenwood Street into live-work lofts.

Sam Mokhtarian, whose SD&S Properties, Inc. owns the factory building at 2020 Greenwood St., called the proposal spot zoning that would harm his tenant and other factory owners.

The plastic packaging manufacturer Spartech Corporation leases his building.

Mr. Mokhtarian told the commission Dec. 14 he feared condo residents would complain about factory noise and truck traffic and might drive Spartech out of the city.

He also said he may add a loading dock on vacant land between the two properties that would reduce green space and views for condo buyers.

He said other buyers of 2100 Greenwood would use it as a factory, but admitted that nobody with industrial uses in mind bought it during the three years it was vacant.

Stephen Engelman, the attorney for the 2100 Greenwood developers, said the requested change from general industrial to transitional manufacturing was not spot zoning.

Mr. Engelman, a former Evanston alderman, said the Greenwood parcel occupies 1.2 acres and the City has at least nine other zoning districts that size or smaller.

That includes, Mr. Engelman said, the former Nabisco factory at Custer Avenue and Linden Place "in an industrial district across from a residential district in which the property was turned into residential live-work lofts."

The Greenwood property is also across the street from a residential district.
Charles Booker of 2022 Lake St. said that he and other members of the Lake, Brown, Grey, Greenwood block club had met repeatedly with the developers and toured the project site.
He said neighbors generally favor the condo project, but don't want to lose the jobs Spartech brings to the community.

Annette Logan of the Evanston Community Development Corporation said the project would be "a big benefit to the neighborhood and a great model for other developers."

She said it would increase City tax revenue and said the developers already offer education and job training programs for high school students and will provide construction jobs to local residents.

The proposal next goes to the City Council's Planning and Development Committee, which is likely to discuss it at its Jan. 12 meeting.

back to top