RAHM ACCUSEDOF POST OFFICE PLOY
Developer’s aide says Rahm wants to seize Old Post Office to distract from Laquan McDonald controversy
Mayor Rahm Emanuel was accused Monday of flexing his eminent domain muscle on Chicago’s Old Main Post Office to divert attention from the furor over his handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.
One day before the Community Development Commission was poised to ratify the mayor’s plan, Brtitish developer Bill Davies vowed to exhaust “all legal means to stop” City Hall from seizing the building from Davies and soliciting bids to redevelop it.
“A lot of things have happened in Chicago in the last few months that the mayor has been criticized for that are far more serious than a building that’s not being developed. Issues in the Chicago Police Department have put him under great pressure,” said Martin Mulryan, Davies’ project manager.
“He’s had a lot of bad press lately. He needs something [ to serve as a political smokescreen]. But you wouldn’t get my vote by stealing other peoples’ buildings.”
Mulryan acknowledged that the script for Tuesday’s CDC meeting has already been written.
First, the Emanuel- appointed panel is expected to authorize the city to acquire the 2.5 million- square- foot building that straddles the Eisenhower Expressway. That will be followed by a second vote to green- light the mayor’s plan to issue a request for proposals ( RFP) from developers interested in purchasing the building from the city and redeveloping it.
The RFP for the entire building— not pieces of it— is now expected to be issued this month with a winner chosen this summer, under an expedited schedule disclosed Monday.
The designated developer will be required to bankroll the city’s acquisition of the property and develop the project without tax- increment-financing ( TIF) funds or any other city subsidy, Planning and Development Commissioner David Reifman has said.
Mulryan likened the entire process to a dictatorship.
“Why bother having a hearing when the mayor instructs people what to do? People on that commission don’t have a mind of their own. Why doesn’t the mayor just decree it like Caesar would do or like [ Russian President] Vladimir Putin would do?” Mulryan said.
“I don’t think it would happen anywhere else in the world. Maybe it would happen in Moscow. It’s almost a form of communism where the mayor sees a building he likes and hands it to one of his supporters who may have assisted him in the past.”
He added, “Chicago is a very strange city. Politics and money are so powerful in Chicago. Somebody said to me a long time ago, ‘ To enable you to do work in Chicago, you need political sponsors.’ We haven’t really developed our political side, which we should have done. Developing connections is more important than developing the building. We don’t have the right connections in the right places.”
Mayoral spokesman Adam Collins issued an emailed statement in response to Mulryan’s broadside.
“After 20 years of seeing the Old Main Post Office sit vacant and hearing nothing but empty promises, time is up, and it’s time to move forward. We are not going to be distracted from our ultimate goal of ensuring this building becomes a productive force in Chicago’s economy,” Collins wrote.
Last week, Emanuel vowed to forge ahead with a condemnation lawsuit that could get messy. He argued that Davies, who purchased the building in 2009, has had long enough to develop it and hasn’t shown an ounce of progress.
The mayor said he was prepared for what could be a contentious legal battle over the city’s sweeping power of eminent domain.
On Monday, Mulryan countered, “We will take all legal means to stop it from happening. If he has that ability, every businessman in Chicago should not sleep comfortably in the bed. He may come along and decide he wants their building if you don’t work to the city’s program or what the city wants.”
The behemoth of a post office and annex buildings have sat vacant ever since 1995, despite the massive building’s prominent location at the western gateway to the downtown area.
“A LOT OF THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN CHICAGO IN THE LAST FEWMONTHS THAT THEMAYOR HAS BEEN CRITICIZED FOR THAT ARE FARMORE SERIOUS THAN A BUILDING THAT’S NOT BEING DEVELOPED.’’
MARTIN MULRYAN, project manager for developer Bill Davies