Kids limber up: First-ever ‘Spring into Sports’ at Crane High School

By KATE GARDINER
Contributing Reporter
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

It gives them something to do," said Darnetta Byndum, a mother of two who lives near Crane High School on the Near West Side, as she watched her son, 14, play basketball in the school's gym last Saturday.

"It forced my older son, outside during spring break, and it meant that I knew where they both were, at least for part of the day," she said. "Usually they just hang out, eating everything."

Byndum's sons, who attend Crane's middle and high schools, were playing basketball and more unorthodox sports as part of the first-ever Spring Into Sports championships, an eight-day spring break sports tournament that served to mix up teenagers from 16 neighborhoods from across Chicago and keep kids entertained during the Chicago Public Schools' spring break last week.

The program reached into neighborhoods around Orr, Englewood, Little Village and Crane high schools, opening doors usually kept locked during school holidays. More than 1,500 kids participated. Crane hosted a closing ceremony last Saturday.

The idea, said Keri Blackwell, the event organizer, was to expose students to different kinds of sports.

"So we got in touch with a couple of organizations and included some new sports, odd sports, archery and boxing," she said. "We shut down basketball and made them play something else - table tennis, badminton." And the kids enjoyed it.

Jose Ruiz, 16, said he went to the Spring into Sports program at Little Village, and then at Crane to play volleyball, but he picked up badminton. "I really like to play it," he said.

The sport is not offered at his school, Farragut, but his eight-day career was worth it, Ruiz said, batting the shuttlecock at a friend. "We got to meet new people, from other schools and places, at least to say hi," he said.

Earnest Gates, executive director of the Near West Side Community Development Corporation, said his organization became involved because of its Safe Summer basketball and baseball programs.

"One of the things we hear at CAPs meetings, at LSC meetings, is that the kids have nothing to do on break," Gates said. "So we're stepping into that hole. And we're attracting major numbers."

Gates said Near West wants to participate in Spring into Sports for the long-haul.

"We hope to use it to introduce the kids to other sports, like gymnastics," he said.

Joel Bookman, director of programs for LISC/Chicago, said he liked watching the kids learning archery and table tennis during the week.

"We're planning to do much more of this after school lets out," said Bookman. "It grew out of our long-term programs, and we really hope to expand it into other neighborhoods."

"One of the things about the program was that the regional teams were able to incorporate everyone," said Blackwell. "There were no tryouts, and if you wanted to try out new sports, you could."

"We were thrilled that CPS and the high schools allowed the program," she added. "This is what the kids need."

Blackwell said there were no significant incidents between the participants all week, despite the high turnout. "If it goes like this, we hope to continue to get the gyms to stay open during the holidays," she said.

***

Chicago politicians go virtual
Flores and Waguespack among those gettin’ Webby

By KATE GARDINER
Medill News Service
Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley recently launched his very own YouTube channel, informing his constituents that he and the city of Chicago, "want to move forward on behalf of all of our citizens."

But what he's really doing is playing catch up, learning to use one of the tools that has proven useful to some city council aldermen - and a boon at the polls.

YouTube is already something of a battleground in Chicago politics. The first link that comes up if you search for "Ted Matlak" on YouTube is a two-minute musical send-up of the former 32nd Ward alderman's development policies created by Scott Waguespack's staff, who defeated Matlak in the hard-fought 2007 aldermanic campaign. The song has been viewed more than 6,800 times.

Waguespack said his staff has shifted its posture from political reaction to online service since then - his aides maintain and update the ward's Web site to keep constituents informed. But Waguespack hasn't dumped all of the maintenance on his staff.

He said he has taken to managing his own Facebook account, and interacts with his constituents almost every day through the popular social networking site, where he has 166 "friends."

But Waguespack is probably going to maintain his current level of interactivity. "I'm not Manny," he said, referring to 1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores. "I think I'm going to stick with Facebook. It's enough. Manny's constantly tweeting and twittering and into all that."

Flores, 37, is the youngest alderman in city council, and a member of the city's committee on economic, capital and technology development. His staff maintains a 1st Ward Web site, which accepts service requests online, as well as via Facebook.

Flores is now "friends" with nearly 1,800 people through the site.
"It's just expanded our universe," Flores said. "We're learning and thinking about how to become more strategic about how we use it. What we do know is that this thing does work, it has a tremendous amount of potential, and most importantly, it's easy."

Flores said that his ward is being used as a pilot for the city, particularly with the micro-blogging Twitter service.

"If an alderman is using Twitter," he said, "the city is using it. We're focusing on 1st Ward issues, but in many ways we're an experiment, and we're demonstrating that this is useful to engage the general public."

"Lately we've been sending out community alerts about this serial rapist in the neighborhood," he said. "It's viral, I think, and the information is being disseminated broader, and more efficiently and effectively."

This new digital information awareness has also grown into legislative proposals. Flores and Waguespack have secured 20 signatures in favor of an ordinance that would force city government to create a Web site to track the city's tax increment financing spending.

Forty-second Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly said e-mail was essential to his 2007 campaign.

"We used the Internet campaign to supplement the traditional tactics," Reilly said. "We really pushed early voting too - via email. We were forced to implement an aggressive strategy, but ultimately at much lower costs."

His opponent Burt Natarus, 75, was first elected to the city council in 1971.

"I think we had e-mail," Natarus said. "I hired the Haymarket Group," a consulting firm. "They handled all that stuff. Really, at the time, I was surprised we used television in an alderman's race."

Natarus said though his campaign was one of the first to have a Web site, he doesn't know if he really knew how to use the technology to reach voters. He said his plan had been to retire after 40 years in city council but, "lots of people wanted to get rid of this old hoot."

Like Waguespack and Flores, Reilly is now using Facebook as well. "In 2007, social media hadn't quite bloomed," he said. "Who knows where we'll be in 2011."

Now retired, Natarus said he has been considering joining the Internet age. He said with the advice from his kids he plans to buy a laptop.   

"You should see me scroll," he said. "Since I've figured out how to do text messages on my cell phone, I think I'm ready for a laptop." 
In the meantime, he asked for a copy of this article. Via facsimile.

***

Ground control on election night
Smiles, shrugs and lessons after the 5th District primary

By Alex Keefe
Medill News Service
3/4/2009 10:00:00 PM 

(Liveblog here; Background piece here. Note: The Fifth District race was the Medill graduate program's first foray into liveblogging anything; it proved an interesting experiment.)

He didn't win the money race, but Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley handily topped a crowded field to win the Democratic nomination Tuesday night in the primary to fill Rahm Emanuel's term in the 5th Congressional District.

Despite being substantially out-fundraised by two of his opponents, state Reps. Sara Feigenholtz and John Fritchey, Quigley polled enough votes to secure the Democratic spot on the April 7 special ballot, facing Republican Rosanna Pulido and Green candidate Matt Reichel.

Quigley posted a solid victory, winning 23 percent of his party's vote. Fritchey came in second, with 18 percent of the vote; Feigenholtz garnered 16 percent.

"He's somebody nobody sent," 44th Ward Ald. Tom Tunney said of Quigley at his Tuesday night victory party, invoking the title of a book about the old Democratic Machine called We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent that refers to the closed system of party sponsorship in seeking office.

Quigley arrived at his campaign's election night party at Red Ivy in Wrigleyville around 9:30 p.m. By that time, with nearly 85 percent of county and city precincts reporting, the lead he had held all night was secure and his opponents had called and conceded.

"For a guy who was accused of not smiling enough," Quigley told supporters, "I'm smiling now."

Quigley's opponents in the special general election are outspoken illegal immigration opponent Pulido and peace activist Matt Reichel.
Emanuel resigned from the seat in January to become Obama's chief of staff, prompting a special election scramble that found 23 candidates in three separate primaries vying for the right to succeed him.

Turnout, as predicted, was low, with about 18 percent of the district's nearly 349,000 registered voters going to the polls.

Feigenholtz was game in her consolation speech, joking that instead of going to Washington, where the deficit is in the trillions of dollars, "here I am, headed back to Illinois with its $9 billion deficit."

Patrick O'Connor, standing less than a mile from the North Side school he attended, said he was proud to go back to his job as 40th Ward alderman. O'Connor, the machine insider who entered the race late and never got the boost he hoped for from City Hall, found himself on the outside looking in as the results came in Tuesday night.

"Maybe the party perspective is on the way out," he told a crowd of about 150 supporters at Juliana, a Northwest Side Restaurant. "Maybe running from the outside is how it's going to go from here on out."

He lamented the amount of money spent on the race - combined candidate spending amounted to about $100 for each of the 43,000 votes cast Tuesday - but said he believed in the message of his campaign.

"Wayne Gretzky said you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take," O'Connor said. "When there's a shot like this, you have to take it. When you miss it, it's unfortunate, but I think worth the attempt."
John Fritchey's post-election party featured a cross-section of dress and age - men in suits and baseball hats, men in sweat pants and baseball hats, women in heels and baseball hats - all drinking, all searching the results on their iPhones.

But that didn't make the result, which didn't go their way, any easier to take.

Fritchey himself bit his lip during his acceptance speech, thanking those who had helped him, and said, "We'll fight another day."
Tom Geoghegan's election-night party had the look of an AARP meeting, but it was proof of his effectiveness in picking up the older vote, part of his strategy in this race.

"What we tried to do," Goeghegan told his supporters, "is [write] the very first draft of the post-meltdown progressive movement."
Geoghegan told a reporter, "The main thing is not to let yourself be defeated permanently."

At the combined Republican victory party, nominee Rosanna Pulido said, "Mr. Quigley has a voting record and it's one that I have taken notice of way before today."

"He'll have his voting record come back ... the chickens are going to come home to roost."

Pulido, who received 912 votes to win the Republican primary, told the audience of 50 people that she wanted to return to the basics in the 5th District and defend the rights of the American worker.
"We need to get back to common sense," Pulido said.

Spirits were high and Republican Party unity was the theme of the evening. All of the Republican primary candidates, minus Tom Hanson, joined the celebration at the Banquets by Biagio Hall.

After conceding to Pulido, Jon Stewart said, "I feel great that the Republican Party ... is putting a new foot forward, and that's the message tonight. Rosanna's a great candidate and we're all going to be behind her and do whatever it takes to help her win."

Greg Bedell even joined Daniel S. Kay and David "Dr. Dave" Anderson onstage for their brief concession speeches. Bedell told the crowd, "Our party is alive, it's strong, and it's moving."

Going into the general election, Pulido said she is not worried about the Democrats' traditional stronghold in the 5th District.

"The truth of the matter is the voters have never had a conservative candidate to vote for," Pulido said. "(In this election) we'll all be getting an education."

There was one Green Party vote for every 100 Democratic votes cast Tuesday,.

"It's not about the numbers," said Green party candidate Matt Reichel. "We're building from the ground up."

Tuesday's election marks only the second time voters could get the Green ballot in Illinois.

"We couldn't realistically expect to get a lot of votes," Reichel said.
The progressive crossover vote, he said, will be their shot at taking down the Democratic machine on April 7.

Reichel kept a 10-point margin for most of the night, but the race against top contender Deb Gordils was still too close to call by midnight.

Gordils was happy with her campaign. "I feel at peace," she said. "I did the best that I could do."

Liz Hoffman, Kate Gardiner, Tim Taliaferro, H. Jose Bosch, Walter Morris, Yana Kunichoff and Lauren Hansen contributed to this report.

***

Sunshine on TIF? Flores, Waguespack sponsoring ordinance for online disclosure

By KATE GARDINER
Medill News Service
2/25/2009 10:00:00 PM 

Sunshine could be blazing down on how Chicago tax increment financing districts work if two Northwest Side aldermen get their way.

First Ward Alderman Manny Flores and 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack said their proposal - which would force the city to organize all of its TIF documents online - was inspired by December closure of Republic Windows and Doors, a major neighborhood employer.

The abrupt closure attracted national attention after employees staged a sit-in at the factory, recouping some of their back wages.

The city did not. A 1998 TIF agreement was allowed to expire, and the company had few assets left after its bankruptcy.

In response, Waguespack and Flores introduced a resolution and ordinance that would force the city to make TIF documents - from weekly payroll records to annual reports - easy to find and track online.

"The ordinance simply prescribes a process for making the TIF redevelopment agreements, sub agreements, reports, and other related public documents readily accessible to all interested stakeholders," a press release about the ordinance noted.

Waguespack said the ordinance would help the public, the press and other observers learn more about TIF agreements in their neighborhoods.

Right now, to learn about TIF agreements, interested parties must submit Freedom of Information Act requests or dig through mountains of city council proceedings.

The pair said the cumbersome process discourages public involvement in tax increment financing issues.

Twenty aldermen have signed in support of the ordinance, and Waguespack said he hopes to get nine more signatures. The ordinance needs 26 votes to pass.

"We want to examine the way and the types of agreements the city gets into in the name of economic development," Flores said.

"If it involves tax money," Flores said, "then the general public should have access to evaluate the merits, before we get into a situation like at Republic."

The Mayor's Office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
***

Remaking a forgotten area: Longtime businesses owners could benefit when the Green Exchange opens

By KATE GARDINER
Medill News Service
2/4/2009 10:00:00 PM

The Green Exchange, a multi-purpose business center focusing on so-called green collar jobs, is still an oddity in the changing neighborhood on the eastern edge of Logan Square, near Diversey and Rockwell, where it sits.

With Interstate 90/94 looming nearby, this part of Diversey Avenue is a dichotomy of $400,000 condominiums down the street from abandoned, scarred homes whose doors flap in the winter wind.

Around the neighborhood, prevalent graffiti indicates the struggles the area has with crime. Statistics from the Web site Every Block reports more than 300 crimes in the area over the past month, including last November, a man was murdered in an alley behind the condominiums that face the exchange on Diversey. 

Despite local challenges and the national economic recession, the Green Exchange has started signing up tenants and preparing the building for an opening later this year.

Tenants already committed range from GreenChoice Bank, which aims to be the first green community bank in the Midwest, to the Delta Institute, a nonprofit that offers a variety of services and program connected to environmental sustainability.

Institute representative Kindy Kruller said the Green Business Development Center Delta plans for the Green Exchange will nurture green technology and training for sustainable business throughout the Midwest.

For some of the neighborhood's longtime business operators, development of the exchange offers a chance to jumpstart their companies.

Richard Kabbe said regardless of the neighborhood's challenges, he's hoping the Green Exchange will bring foot traffic to his and other nearby stores.

Kabbe's family has owned Kabbe Hardware, 2550 W. Diversey, for 98 years. He said the last time his neighborhood was doing really well, in 1958, the business sold to a mostly industrial clientele. 

The project is bringing hope to an area, Kabbe said, that was cut off when the highway was built years ago. 

"Anything's better than an empty building," he said. "This little corner of the area has kind of been forgotten." 

The demise of industry in the area - especially the 2005 closure of the Cooper Lamp Factory - has meant slower sales at Kabbe's. But now his clientele is changing.

"We used to have maintenance people from the factories who would come in, get what they need, write up their own order, and then leave, without even interacting with us," Kabbe said. "Now, it's more people who don't know what they're doing. It's more educational."

Kabbe said he and the owner of the restaurant next door are looking forward to the foot traffic, and he's changing the product lines he's carrying to suit the new young, professional clientele he's courting. 

Until the exchange opens later this spring, Kabbe is holding tight. The neighboring restaurant has started investing in flat screen televisions and is redecorating.

Green Exchange public relations manager Jennifer Schellinger said the project will bring around 60 jobs for low-income workers to the neighborhood, funded by $500,000 in federal tax credits for the green businesses coming in. Ultimately about 200 people are expected to work at the site.

***

Cluster of warehouses opened for commercial
New restaurants and retails eyed for historic warehouses

By KATE GARDINER
Medill News Service
1/28/2009 10:00:00 PM 

A group of historic buildings on the bank of the Chicago River in East Pilsen may finally find a new use.

The buildings were added to the Pilsen Industrial Corridor in 2005 as part of a plan to control gentrification and maintain the 11,000 manufacturing jobs based there.

But at January's Plan Commission meeting, commissioners voted to open the doors to new commercial businesses in the area, near 22nd Street and the river. Barriers to residential development will remain in place.

Among only a few dozen historically significant warehouses left in Chicago, the structures can now be used for restaurants and retail space.

The buildings have left developers frustrated: Their historic status prevents them from being destroyed, but conventional renovation would be too expensive to be practical for industrial use.

David Betlejewski, executive director of the 18th Street Development Corp., said the change will help the buildings' owners, who have struggled to identify non-residential uses for the interconnected warehouses.

"They have at least 12,000-square-foot footprints, and they're between one and four stories tall," he said. "They're huge buildings."

The trio, which, with the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge, makes up the Cermak Bridge Historic District, served manufacturers in the early 20th Century as a spice warehouse, a water tank company and a lamp shade manufacturing plant. The buildings were constructed on the shore of the Chicago River to take advantage of rail and water shipping options.

"They're unique because of their grouping," said Jim Peters, president of Landmarks Illinois. "It's a great concentration. It was a battle to get the zoning the first time."

According to Betlejewski, the conventional conversion for warehouse space-loft-style condominiums-was rejected by community residents and business owners who wanted to ward off gentrification of the neighborhood. Nearby construction firms operate 24 hours a day, he said, and were not enthusiastic about condos near their facilities. 

The new commercial space allows for some flexibility, he said, but does not interfere with the manufacturing area.

"Our industrial corridor is one of the biggest in the city," he said. "It's diverse and it's stable."

Betlejewski said the district has maintained its jobs despite the recent economic turmoil. He said he believes the area may be down only a few jobs in 2008, despite the loss of DHL, one of the corridor's tenants.

"They're being replaced by a collections agency, which intends to double its workforce to about 200 jobs," he said.

Lawrence Fisheries restaurant has been across the river from the buildings for the past 60 years. Addressing the Plan Commission, owner Kurt Schweig said he would welcome the increased business to the neighborhood. "The commercial potential of the site is enormous," he said. "We look forward to having more people visit."

Betlejewski said that the project is an element of a bigger plan that some area developers have for the underused area between Pilsen and Chinatown.

Ray Chin, a developer who has worked on projects throughout Chinatown, owns a portion of one of the buildings.

"We've been struggling for years to do something for the properties," Chin said. "The city took input, they evaluated, and it's the city that works, if sometimes it's a little slow.

***

Owners seek to draw renters to refurbished building

By KATE GARDINER
Medill News Service
1/21/2009 10:00:00 PM
 
A former appliance warehouse built in 1924 has been declared the city's first landmark of 2009.

The owners of the Lindmann and Hoverson Company Showroom and Warehouse, located at 2620 W. Washington in East Garfield Park, applied to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks in August for the status, giving its approval in January.

Owner and developer Lawrence Kerner said he combined the city's historic landmark preservation ordinance and the U.S. Green Building standards to expedite permits needed to build-out the warehouse.

Kerner said his motivation, other than his concern for the environment, was to reduce costs of the building's construction. He said given the state of the economy, he was extremely concerned with the financing behind the project. The project almost didn't get started.

"We finally got funding approved in July," Kerner said. "We had financing arranged several times, but until JP Morgan Chase approved a loan for the full construction costs, we were wavering."

Kerner said he and his partner, Bold Ventures, intend to keep the 68-unit apartment building, and that the renovation shows that consideration. "We're putting quality into the building to save ourselves the money later," he said.

According to a preliminary report filed by the landmarks commission, the warehouse was constructed by Chicago architect Paul Gerhardt, Sr., who designed reinforced concrete buildings including Cook County Hospital.

The U.S. Green Building standards required the developers to invest in energy-efficient heating and air conditioning, as well as insulation and new windows.

Kerner said the hardest part of the renovation was bringing the requirements of the Landmarks Commission together with those environmental standards, "They just don't match up," he said. "It's really hard to coordinate."

"The units have great light because of the windows - they're seven by 15 feet, and on the corner units, the walls are all windows," said Kerner.

Such amenities could help draw artists and other creative professionals to the structure. "We expect to attract creative types from nearby," he said.

Kerner said he expects the apartments and a 3,800 square-foot retail space will be available for lease in April or May.

Rent for the one-bedroom loft apartments will be between $900 and $1,000 per month; the two-bedroom units will go for about $1,400.

***

New life for Schoenhofen building
East Pilsen-based brothers envision commercial in historic structure

By KATE GARDINER
Contributing Reporter
12/10/2008 10:00:00 PM 

For more than a century, the Schoenhofen Brewery Administration Building has occupied the corner of Canalport and 18th Street.

Built as a monument to the son of the brewery's owner in 1886, the building was closed during Prohibition. After a short stint as headquarters for another brewery, and then an adhesive company, the building and fourteen others on its seven-acre parcel sat derelict and open to the elements.

The building is now undergoing renovation by the East Pilsen-based firm Athens Construction. The company, which bought the building for about $400,000 two years ago, has budgeted more than $2 million for its renovation into modern commercial space that could include galleries, music, a bar or restaurant. On the western edge of the existing structure, the firm will build a service shaft for stairs and elevators.

Because of the building's status as a historic landmark, the company applied for and received a Class-L property tax exemption, which reduces the property tax on the building for the next 12 years.
Athens Construction's owners, the Kourkouvis brothers, said that given the current economic climate, every little bit will help with their pet project.

"To create a new building of this size would cost about $100 per square foot," said Nandos Kourkovis, chief of Athens' creative team. "To do a rehabilitation of a building this size today costs more than $200 per square foot."

Kourkouvis said the building has become a matter of pride, rather than a business investment. Still, he said if the renovation is done well, "People will be willing to pay [to lease space], and at the end, it will pay off."

He said he always wanted to buy the building, and approached the owner years ago, but the parcel of former brewery buildings was too cumbersome, and too expensive, for his needs.

The 2006 sale went through, he said, because another developer wanted to buy the rest of the parcel-and not the landmarked, decrepit administration building fronting 18th Street. But Kourkouvis said he "has a taste for old buildings. We love to put new life into old buildings."

He said when he and his brother heard it was for sale, they first made sure it was salvageable.

"The first time we went in it, only me and another guy would go inside," Kourkouvis said. "We crawled in, and then made our way up to the roof."

Architect Jake Boehm added, "There were trees growing up there before we worked on it, and a lot of the stairs were missing two or three steps."

But the building's ornate façade was mostly intact.

"The exterior is the most important part," said Kourkouvis. "It's the details that are essential."

Boehm said the building's basement was another key element to pursuing the project.

"It has ten-foot ceilings, and windows," he said. "I don't know what they did with it originally, but it'd be perfect for a bar or something now."

Kourkouvis said the project should be completed sometime in 2009, and that he has been looking for tenants for the building's three 6,600-square foot stories. A recently submitted proposal for a concert venue on the ground floor looks promising, though he cautioned, "No one's sure of anything with the economy the way it is."

In the meantime, Kourkouvis and Boehm have been working on the building nonstop.

Boehm, the company's youngest staff member, said replacement stone for the foundation was difficult to find.

"It's megalithic construction," he said. "It's difficult to repair."
Boehm said he managed to fix many of the terra cotta cornices integral to the building's late-Victorian design, but that it took a lot of work, and a lot of expense, to arrange.

"It's exhausting," said Kourkouvis. "It demands a lot of brain time. But projects like this are what drove us into this business, and getting involved in projects we like helps us to focus on what we do."