Eminent Domain

I've been a little too busy to blog much about eminent domain issues, so take a look at what the Sam Adams Alliance has to say about International Plaza. In July of 2002, the Village of Arlington Heights, Illinois handed down a bogus “blighted” designation to the International Plaza, a local shopping center, in order to bulldoze it and put up a Super Target store. This move … [Read more...] about Sam Adams Alliance on International Plaza

Here's another property threatened by eminent domain in the Des Plaines Five Corners/River-Rand TIF District. The last two businesses I blogged about, the Geiser-Berner plumbing shop and the corner BP Gas Station are both inside what I'm calling the Inner Triangle, the region bounded on the east by River Road, on the southwest by Rand Road, and on the north by the Union … [Read more...] about Des Plaines TIF: Suburban Transmission

This BP gas station is another of the businesses that the Des Plaines City Council is calling "blighted." Located on the northwest corner of the intersections of Rand and River roads, it's very nearly at the center of the TIF district. (Visit the previous Des Plaines entry .)[Update: Visit the next Des Plaines entry.] … [Read more...] about Des Plaines TIF: BP Gas Station

I've got hundreds of photos from the Des Plaines River-Rand TIF, and it's about time I posted a few of them. I'll start with this batch from Geiser-Berner Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning. Its owners, Robert Janczak, Ed Lehman, and Scott Olson are among the more outspoken opponents of the TIF. Their shop is a standalone building with a somewhat out-of-date look. … [Read more...] about Des Plaines TIF: Geiser-Berner

A bunch of folks showed up at the International Plaza shopping mall yesterday to distribute fliers and conduct a survey as part of the effort to save the plaza and a few neighboring properties from eminent domain abuse. (The young lady at right is a reporter who showed up to cover the effort.) The village of Arlington Heights is trying to use a TIF district to take over … [Read more...] about Distributing the International Plaza Survey