- Rich Hein/Sun-Times Media
- Nice building—but it’s no toilet paper.
On behalf of all the movers and shakers in this town, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the public school children of Chicago for their generosity in making this a banner year for Willis Tower and other downtown properties.
In particular, I’m thanking the kiddies for the millions in property tax dollars that would have otherwise gone to the schools but instead went to help pay for refurbishing Willis Tower as part of the deal in which United Airlines moved its headquarters there.
Instead think of it as sort of a replacement cost, as generation after generation of public school kids goes without toilet paper, chess, janitors, librarians, drama, and other amenities that most school systems in the civilized world take for granted.
I know this because I was there at the creation of the TIF district—LaSalle Central—from which the Willis money comes.
I was thinking of these ancient TIF deals as I read that Blackstone was making another big-time downtown purchase, scooping up the Apparel Center for about $390 million.
He used to tell me that I was too hard on the city’s TIF program, without which downtown Chicago would be like some old abandoned mining town with tumbleweeds blowing through.
