Crain's Chicago Business, November 6, 2023 by crainschicago

CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM I NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Autoworkers didn’t get all, but got a lot The new UAW contracts with the Detroit Three stack up well when compared to labor’s other recent deals with Deere, UPS and the airlines

GEOFFREY BLACK

By John Pletz

Autoworkers at the Detroit Three just negotiated the best contracts they’ve seen in a generation. The deals, which were wrapped up late last month, are the latest in a string of strong settlements by labor unions in manufacturing and transportation, including Deere, UPS and the big traditional airlines: United, American and Delta. Over 4½ years, autoworkers at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors will get 25% raises, in addition to annual cost-of-living adjustments that could increase pay 33% for workers at the top of the scale. That isn’t quite the 40% that airline pilots at United,

American and Delta received in their four-year deals, nor the 35% raises in the five-year contract with UPS. But it’s slightly higher, based on annualized raises, than the six-year agreement reached at Deere in late 2021. Matt Frantzen, president of the UAW Local 1268 at the Stellantis plant in Belvidere, says the raises in this contract alone exceed the amount he’s seen in all the deals signed since he became an autoworker in 1994. “I haven’t seen a deal this good in 30 years,” he says, which he credited to United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and the team that took over the UAW last year. But the biggest win was

Can Michigan City become Northern Cook County the new New Buffalo? A string of wins positions the postindustrial city along Lake Michigan for transformation I By Dennis Rodkin

larence Hulse had already spent several years receiving potentially transformative news for his town, Michigan City, Ind., when state officials delivered another momentous gift in August, announcing they’ll close the Indiana State Prison, which has stood on Michigan City’s eastern end since 1860, toward the end of this decade. “That’s 100 acres that’s a few minutes by bike from the Mt. Baldy parking lot” in Indiana Dunes National Park, Hulse said. “That’s going to be prime land for development.” Closing the prison — whose most famous inmate was John Dillinger — is the latest piece of good news for Hulse, director of the economic development corporation in Michigan City, a Lake Michigan shoreline town of 32,000 people 59 miles from the Loop. With some of Michigan City’s biggest pockmarks being removed See MICHIGAN CITY on Page 6

See UAW on Page 16

homes see median property taxes jump

North, northwest suburban residential properties bear the brunt of a $331M increase in 2022 bills By Leigh Giangreco

Clarence Hulse is director of the economic development corporation in Michigan City. I PHOTOS BY GEOFFREY BLACK

The north and northwest suburbs saw a $331 million increase in their 2022 Cook County property tax bills, with residential properties taking on most of the burden this year. Higher levies driven by school districts, the reversal of a COVID-era adjustment and a new provision in the

Illinois tax code that allowed taxing bodies to recover money from property owners fueled the hike. Following Cook County’s latest assessment, the median residential tax bill for residents in the north and northwest suburbs shot up by 15.7%, from $6,056 to $7,008. That spike represents the

HEALTH CARE As winter looms, migrants’ lack of reliable shelter could become a public crisis.

DINING Five Chicago restaurants added to Michelin’s Bib Gourmands list.

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See TAXES on Page 18

Embattled National Association of Realtors replaces CEO commission with the buyer’s An interim leader is taking the helm, replacing Bob Goldberg, who was near agent. Goldberg said it’s always the center of two recent controversies involving the Chicago-based trade group been up to the agents to negotiate By Dennis Rodkin

The Chicago-based National Association of Realtors, which in recent weeks has been engulfed in a pair of controversies over sexual harassment allegations and the industry’s sales commission standards, abruptly replaced its longtime CEO with the former head of the Chicago SunTimes. Nykia Wright, who left the SunTimes in January after five years, will become interim CEO of the 1.5 million-member NAR at the end of November, the organization announced in a press release Nov. 2. Current CEO Bob Goldberg, who has been with NAR since

1995 and had previously announced he would retire at the end of 2024, will serve as an executive consultant, according to the press release. NAR, the nation’s biggest trade association, has offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Of its roughly 350 employees, about 200 work in Chicago. Goldberg was one of the group’s top leadership targeted by a staff petition in September. After The New York Times reported at length about sexual harassment claims against NAR’s former president and allegations of “a culture of fear” surrounding them that staff leadership including Goldberg fostered, the petitioners wrote that “the buck

has to stop somewhere” and demanded Goldberg’s resignation. He didn’t reply to a request for comment, but has previously denied wrongdoing. Goldberg’s exit follows the resignation of former NAR president Kenny Parcell, who denied the allegations against him.

Group lost big lawsuit Last week, NAR and its co-defendants lost a massive, long-running class-action suit over NAR’s role in setting agent commissions. The court set damages at almost $1.8 billion. During the trial Goldberg testified that NAR doesn’t set agents’ commissions but maintains a century-old standard where the seller’s agent splits the

how to split the commission. After the verdict was announced, Jason Haber, a Compass agent in New York and Florida who organized protests against NAR over the sexual harassment issues, told The New York Times that the court’s decision “is an earthquake. This was their Super Bowl and World Series rolled up into one, and not even Taylor Swift could have saved them.” Goldberg stepping down in the wake of the two controversies may have been inevitable. In announcing Wright’s interim role, NAR’s press release hailed her work at the Sun-Times, where, it said, “she led the newspaper through a sweeping digital transformation and a merger with WBEZ.” Wright started at the Sun-

Times in 2017 as its chief operating officer, became interim CEO in 2018 and took the job permanently in 2019. Prior to working at the SunTimes, NAR’s press release said, Wright “was a strategy and business transformation consultant who advised companies and organizations on a variety of operational, financial and performance improvement matters.” Tracy Kasper, an Idaho real estate agent who took over the NAR presidency when Parcell resigned, said in the press release that she welcomes Wright. “Her deep experience driving organizational transformation positions her well to advance our strategy vision and culture initiatives,” Kasper said in the prepared comments. She said she, Wright and other leaders in the Realtors group will “continue strengthening our organization.”

DAN MCGRATH ON THE BUSINESS OF SPORTS

Remembering Bobby Knight, both the admirable and abominable

ne word that was used in every acknowledgment/ assessment/appreciation of the late Bobby Knight’s 83 years was “polarizing.” Perfect. My sentiments exactly. The man was an undeniably brilliant college basketball coach, his 902 wins and three national championships reflecting a genius for crafting complementary parts into a relentlessly efficient whole. Played by the rules, too, and graduated his players. Most of those players remain steadfastly loyal, insisting Knight’s test-your-manhood tactics made them not only better Dan ballplayers but McGrath better people. He could also be an unrepentant bully, a lout given to fits of temper and thoughtless cruelty that left even his closest friends and staunchest allies shaking their heads: Why, Bobby? Frank Deford’s 1981 Sports Illustrated profile, “The Rabbit Hunter,” was definitive; John Feinstein’s 1986 book, “Season on the Brink,” was scary. I can’t say I knew Knight beyond various professional interactions, but I saw both sides. Bob Mullen, a promotion-minded high school coach whom I covered in the very early days, got Knight to speak at a coaching clinic in Galena, 50 miles from where I was working in Freeport. Mullen offered me an audience with The Man if I’d make the drive. Knight hadn’t yet hurled any chairs, slapped any Puerto Rican police officers or deposited any LSU fans in trash cans, but he had

taken Indiana to the Final Four in his third season there, at 33. His star was ascending. He was big, glowering and intimidating, and when he saw how young and clueless I was — the first dumb question gets me thrown out of here, I thought — he must have thought lunch had arrived. But I knew he liked Al McGuire and Rick Majerus — I was friendly with both — and after I shamelessly played that card Knight was downright civil. I asked him why he was so vehemently disdainful of zone defenses. “I was a horse (manure) player,” he began, “but I could shoot a little, so when we faced zones, I got to play. When I went into coaching, I decided I didn’t want any part of anything that made me a useful player, so I do not play zone.” Even a young, clueless reporter could build a story around that quote. It was Divine Revelation. Decades later, Knight’s Hoosiers suffered a first-round NCAA tournament loss, a more frequent occurrence as the end neared and the players gave off a weary, beaten-down vibe. Never one to accept losing, Knight was fuming, and he kept his media interlocutors waiting past the mandatory “cooling off period” while he stewed. Just as the press-room moderator suggested he wasn’t coming, Knight strode in and proceeded to humiliate the guy, a legitimate media-relations pro who was berated as incompetent and inadequate in front of a roomful of people. You’d have thought he was responsible for Indiana’s loss. Why, Bobby? There was that, and the thrown chair, and Puerto Rican police officer, and the LSU fan, and the

senseless confrontation with the goofy IU student who had the temerity to call him “Knight.” These kids today. . . There were also more serious matters such as the Neil Reed chokehold and the staffers who lived in fear of him, their accounts rendered plausible by Feinstein’s total-access exposé of Knight and his methods. And yet the 1974-75 and 1975-76 Hoosiers played college basketball about as well as it has ever been played, going 63-1, with one undefeated national championship season and maybe another if All-American Scott May didn’t break his arm before the ‘75 tournament.

The Isiah Thomas-led Hoosiers held LSU to 49 points and North Carolina to 50 in dispatching both at the ‘81 Final Four. Those Tar Heels . . . James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Matt Doherty, Jimmy Black . . . sub in Mike Jordan, then a Laney High School senior, for Al Wood and you have Carolina’s ‘82 national champions. And Knight’s 1987 national champions were far less talented than the UNLV and Syracuse teams they handled at the Final Four. Where does genius end and tyrant begin? Hard to know. It’s a polarizing question. Knight was dismissive of the press in general, once saying, “We all learn to write in second grade,

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and most of us move on to greater things.” But Dave Kindred, as respected a sportswriter as has ever typed, liked Knight, considered him a friend and said in a Facebook post that his positive contributions outweighed the negative by “multiples of 50.” Knight himself once said a suitable epitaph would be “He was honest and he kissed nobody’s ass.” Fair enough. But not enough. I admired him as a coach, and because of it I expected more of him as a man. Fair or not. Crain’s contributing columnist Dan McGrath is president of Leo High School and a former Chicago Tribune sports editor.

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Migrant housing could be health crisis in cold With many sometimes sleeping outside amid a cold snap, health care providers are warning of harsh winter weather leading to a public health disaster

DENNIS RODKIN

By Katherine Davis

Adrian Smith

Architect of the world’s tallest building has a pet project here Adrian Smith — designer of Burj Khalifa in Dubai as well as Chicago’s Trump and NBC towers — is restoring a grand Lake Forest estate from the wreck he bought in 2017 I By Dennis Rodkin

drian Smith may be best known as the architect of the tallest building in the world, the sleek, futuristic Burj Khalifa, and another supertall tower in the Middle East that will beat it if completed, Jeddah Tower. But 7,000 miles away in Lake Forest, he’s working on a very different project: the extensive restoration of a grand 1930s estate. “The purpose of buying this was to bring it back to life,” Smith says, 6½ years after buying a decrepit mansion on Green Bay Road that had been empty for 15 years and deteriorating for longer.

“There are rooms I still haven’t touched.” — Adrian Smith

See SMITH on Page 19

With many migrants living, and sometimes sleeping, outside amid a cold snap in Chicago that brought temperatures down to 29 degrees last week, local health care providers are warning about the harsh winter weather leading to a public health disaster. While thousands of migrants are living out of police precincts throughout the city, the stations are crowded, leaving some migrants spending the night outdoors in tents, and many migrants don’t have proper gear, such as coats, gloves, hats and appropriate footwear, to keep warm in cold temperatures. Despite opposition in local communities, the city of Chicago says it is working to establish weatherized basecamps in an effort to keep migrants safe during winter and remove them from sheltering inside police stations and city airports. As of Nov. 2, at least 11,634 people live in Chicago’s migrant shelters, and an additional 3,326 are waiting at police districts and airports, according to the latest figures from the city’s Office of Emergency Management & Communications. Meanwhile, community groups are collecting donated winter clothing and supplies for migrants. But until people are

moved off the streets and into real housing, their health and well-being are at heightened risk, providers say. “Sleeping under tents outside in the Chicago winter — it’s super dangerous,” says Dr. Alejandro Clavier, a pediatrician and site director at Esperanza Health Centers’ West Lawn lo-

“Sleeping under tents outside in the Chicago winter — it’s super dangerous. Lives will be at risk if people stay outside.” — Dr. Alejandro Clavier, a pediatrician and site director at Esperanza Health Centers’ West Lawn location cation. “Lives will be at risk if people stay outside.” Clavier, who has been seeing migrant patients since they first began arriving last year, adds that children and elderly migrants will be particularly vulnerable to harsh winter conditions. Providers are worried about incidents of frostbite, which could lead to hospitalizations, and a worsening respiratory illness surge. Migrants, like other See MIGRANTS on Page 7

Advocate’s new state chief navigates post-merger realities Dia Nichols has to spark growth at the system’s local hospitals amid widespread headwinds while answering to bosses in North Carolina By Katherine Davis

Dia Nichols is preparing for what he calls a “roadshow,” a tour of the 11 hospitals and hundreds of care sites he’s now responsible for in his new role as president of Advocate Health’s Illinois operations. He was named to lead the unit — called Advocate Health Care — in September after the merger of Downers Grove-based Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health, the biggest Illinois hospital combination in recent years. The merged organization, renamed Advocate Health, is the third-largest nonprofit health system in the country.

Advocate Aurora, with hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin, had long been the largest health care provider in the Chicago area. Advocate Health, based in Atrium’s longtime home of Charlotte, N.C., operates 1,000 sites of care and 68 hospitals in six states, serving nearly 6 million patients annually. The multistate organization says it has more than $28 billion in annual revenue, with more than half coming from Advocate Aurora. As head of an Illinois unit serving 1.5 million patients annually, Nichols oversees a big piece of the newly merged chain. His success or failure will help determine whether the megamerger

achieves its objectives of delivering both better financial results and better medical care. Atrium and Advocate said at the time of the merger that joining forces would allow them to cut costs through group purchasing and by integrating infrastructure. They also said the combination would help bring medical innovations to patients more quickly and address health inequalities. But mergers also can give hospital chains more leverage in negotiations with health insurers and employers, enabling hospitals to raise prices. A growing body of research, including an analysis published by the Kaiser Family

Dia Nichols, Advocate Health Illinois chief I PHOTO BY GEOFFREY BLACK

Foundation, reveals that mergers tend to drive up costs without improving the quality of care. With 38,000 employees, Advocate Health Care is a much larger operation than Nichols, 49, has

managed before. Previously, he was president of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Health Care’s Central See ADVOCATE on Page 18 NOVEMBER 6, 2023 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | 3

Michelin adds five Chicago restaurants to its list of local Bib Gourmands A Filipino restaurant that got its start as a food stall, a Mediterranean favorite among industry workers and a spot in Chinatown are among the new entries on the list Pompette I PHOTO BY REILLY DREW

Boonie’s I PHOTO BY KIM KOVACIC

Cellar Door Provisions I PHOTO BY DAVID RAINE

Union I PHOTO BY CLAYTON HAUCK

By Ally Marotti

The Michelin guide has named five newcomers to its Chicago Bib Gourmand list, which features restaurants the company deems to serve high-quality food at a reasonable price. Newcomers include Boonie’s, a Filipino restaurant in Lincoln Square that got its start as a food stall; Cellar Door Provisions, a Logan Square restaurant that skews Mediterranean and is a favorite among industry workers; Pompette, a Bucktown cafe and wine bar that opened last year — its name means “a little drunk” in French; Union, a new American restaurant in Logan Square with a hefty bourbon and beer program, along with a sought-out burger; and Yao Yao, a Chinatown spot with a pickled fish signature dish. To earn a Bib Gourmand designation, it must be possible to order two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for about $50. This year, 47 Chicago restaurants made the list, down from 55 last year. Typically, a restaurant is removed from the Bib Gourmand list if it closes, no longer meets Michelin’s standards, or earns a

star and is elevated off the list.

Last tease The Bib Gourmand list should be the last tease before Michelin announces which restaurants received its coveted stars. Michelin changed its process for announcing stars this year, which typically occurs in the spring. Instead, the winners will be unveiled Nov. 7 at a ceremony in New York City. The full list of Chicago’s Bib Gourmand restaurants will also be available that day. The Michelin guides were created more than a century ago by

French tire manufacturers. The coveted Michelin stars are considered the crown jewels of the restaurant industry. Last year, 23 Chicago restaurants earned a Michelin star. The company has been updating its guides throughout the year, teasing which restaurants might earn a star. In March, it added seven restaurants to its guide — including Union and Pompette — without saying which designation they fell under. Then last month, it added another eight, including Boonie’s, Cellar Door Provisions and Yao Yao.

Yao Yao I PHOTO BY YUCHEN LI

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago lands collection Marilyn and Larry Fields donated 79 pieces in a collaborative effort with the institution’s curatorial staff — a rarity in the art collecting world By Brandon Dupré

Local art collectors Marilyn and Larry Fields donated 79 pieces of artwork from their personal collection to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, a gift that is estimated in the “fulsome seven figures,” according to the museum. The collection, about 80% of which is made by women and people of color, including some artists from Chicago, was selected in tandem with the MCA’s curatorial staff, a rare two-way collaboration in an industry where museums don’t always get a choice. “It was a conversation about what the museum really had on their wish list,” said Marilyn 4 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Fields, “which included a lot of female artists, people of color and artists with diverse backgrounds.” The result of a collaboration of this type is a smarter and better curated collection, said the museum’s Pritzker Director, Madeleine Grynsztejn. “Museums depend almost 90% on gifts, so when that process invites the intelligence and discernment of the curators, you get a very different and smarter body of gifts,” she said. The 79 works come with no terms attached, which allows the museum to be more nimble and flexible in their curation to meet changing trends and demo-

“Nick Cave: Forothermore” I PHOTO BY NATHAN KEAY

graphic shifts, Grynsztejn said. The donation includes paintings, photography, new media and sculptures by major local, national and international artists. And of the 59 artists included in the gift, 23 will make their de-

but appearance at the MCA. Some of the artists included in the collection are Huma Bhabha, Amanda Ross-Ho, Adrian Piper and Jennie C. Jones. The gift will also expand on the museum’s existing collection of artists like Ar-

thur Jafa, Cindy Sherman and Rashid Johnson. “The collaboration with MCA began four years ago,” said Larry Fields. “We really wanted to leave some sort of legacy for our art collecting.” And what better place to put the work than in a museum, Marilyn Fields added, “where they’ll be on the walls and people can come in of all ages and see them. And that, for us, was really the impetus of this whole thing.” Larry Fields was elected trustee of the MCA in 2005 and has served on the executive and collection committees. Marilyn Fields joined the MCA women’s board in 1998 and was president of the board from 2004 to 2007. The couple donated $2 million to the MCA in 2012 to endow the Marilyn & Larry Fields Curator position and previously donated 20 works of art to the museum.

MICHIGAN CITY From Page 1

and investment coming in by the hundreds of millions, the town is at a pivot point in its history. In a decade, it could be a very different place from a little industrial town that used to be best known as the home of the Sansabelt slacks that Johnny Carson and his sidekick Ed McMahon hawked. Instead, if all goes right, it could become a new hub of Lake Michigan shoreline living, with expensive rentals for either shortterm use or long-time living, a restaurant scene and a train ride to Chicago that makes driving over the Skyway and through Gary a thing of the past. In Michigan City, the hits keep coming, so many of them so far that Hulse says “I’m just glad they’re not all happening at once, so we can take this one piece at a time. We’re only going to get one chance to do it right.” When it’s all done a decade from now, Hulse and others hope the city has 10,000 additional residents and an array of hotels, restaurants and shortterm rentals to accommodate visitors to the national park and Michigan City’s pretty beach. Two notable first steps happened in October: Sola, a $280 million development of condos, hotels and restaurants spearheaded by prominent Chicago development firm Farpoint, and 11th Street Central, an $80 million mix of apartments, commercial space and parking near the South Shore train station from an Indianapolis developer, Flaherty & Collins Properties, both broke ground. If all goes as planned, “Michigan City is going to be so cool,” says Joe Farina, a restaurateur who has venues in the South Loop and Oak Park and last year opened Cafe Farina on Franklin Street in Michigan City. The downtown area, now somewhat sleepy and marked by several blocks of vacant land a short walk from the lakefront, “is going to be a very vibrant, yearround community, as opposed to just swelling on summer weekends” says Scott Goodman, head of Farpoint. “A lot more walking and biking and use of the lakefront, an active bar and restaurant scene.”

Not a sure thing It’s not a sure thing. Michigan City is relying heavily on tax-increment financing districts to lure projects in. Farpoint and others have moved dirt but haven’t started construction, and a dramatic change in the U.S. or local economy could intervene before the next steps are taken. And while organized opposition hasn’t yet sprung up to fight the displacement that a downtown renaissance can generate, there’s still time. Joining the prison closure in making this an opportune time for Michigan City are: ◗ The General Motors and Samsung SDI announcement in June that they’ll build a $3 billion elec6 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

The planned shutdown of NIPSCO’s coal-burning electricity plant will ultimately remove the giant concrete tower, frequently mistaken for a nuclear plant, that looms over parts of Michigan City. I PHOTOS BY GEOFFREY BLACK

tric vehicle battery cell plant in New Carlisle, 30 minutes east of Michigan City and entirely too small at 1,870 people to house all the holders of the 1,700 jobs it’s expected to create. While many of them will live in South Bend, about 25 minutes from New Carlisle, “we can get a lot of them to come (in our direction) because of the energy here,” Hulse says, “and we have the beach.” ◗ The $649 million double-tracking of the South Shore rail line, which will add more frequent trains and cut the commute into Chicago by about 20 minutes, to an hour and 20 minutes, faster than the trip can be made by car. Announced in 2014, the double-tracking is scheduled for completion in May. ◗ Shutdown of the coal-burning electricity plant that occupies 123 acres and a mile of shoreline adjacent to the national park. In 2018, electric utility NIPSCO announced it will close the plant within a decade. The shutdown won’t only free up another firstrate parcel, but also will ultimately remove the giant concrete tower, frequently mistaken for a nuclear plant, that looms over the lakefront. ◗ Elevation of the Indiana Dunes from national lakeshore to national park in 2019, raising the profile of the long-loved natural area. The park, which abuts Michigan City, now attracts over 2.8 million visitors a year, up by more than a million from typical attendance before its status upgrade. ◗ The pandemic, which heightened people’s ability to work remotely from pleasantly distant spots like southwest Michigan and northwest Indiana. Long overlooked by second-home buyers headed just past it to Long Beach, Michiana or New Buffalo, Michigan City is both more affordable and replete with empty

or underutilized sites. Of all these enhancements, “there’s no overemphasizing the double-tracking of the South Shore,” Goodman says. “It’s making Michigan City so much easier to reach from the big metropolitan area, Chicago.” Goodman, Hulse and others expect the shorter train ride to bring in not only short-term visitors but new long-term residents, who can hang onto their connections to work, family and doctors in Chicago. When faster service starts in mid-2024, getting to Michigan City by train from downtown Chicago will take about the same time as a ride to Naperville, Schaumburg or Libertyville. “The Indiana Dunes historically was a day-tripper’s paradise,” says Rob Harte, a developer who’s been working on southwest Michigan and northwest Indiana projects for a decade and now heads NWI Development. “For Chicago people, it was ‘Let’s drive over for the day, see it and leave.’ But with all these changes, a significant amount of growth is going to be the people coming for a longer stay.” It’s not only big developers like Farpoint who are climbing aboard. Rodion Galperin, who works in corporate marketing and lives in the Chicago suburbs, now owns a small portfolio of six rental units in the suburbs. He’s looking into buying a few more,

in Michigan City. “For my generation, a lot of whom live in the city so they don’t have to have cars,” says the 40-year-old, “that rail line will make it possible to work in downtown Chicago but commute to where you can live affordably. It makes so much sense.”

Lower property taxes Another factor drawing his interest, Galperin says, is Indiana’s low taxes, compared to notoriously high rates in the Chicago area. The effective property tax rate in Illinois is 2.23%, which puts it close behind New Jersey for the highest-taxing state in the country, according to a February report from WalletHub. Indiana’s rate is 0.83%, roughly one-third of Illinois’ rate and tied for 21st-lowest among the states. On a $245,000 home, an Indiana homeowner would pay $2,021 in property taxes annually, while their Illinois counterpart pays $5,465. “It just keeps going up in Illinois, and I don’t want to pay these tax rates,” Galperin says. “I’d rather invest in a place like Michigan City.” Pat Coughlin, the ReMax County Wide 1st agent Galperin is working with, says the lower taxes will also appeal to longtime Chicagoans looking to cut expenses in retirement. “The money you save is significant,” says Coughlin, a lifelong Chicagoan who with her husband and fellow

agent, Don Schillo, moved from Lisle, in the western suburbs, to Long Beach in 2019. Beyond the savings, Coughlin says, Michigan City’s appeal to retirees or empty nesters comes from the natural splendor of the dunes and the soon-to-arrive ease of getting back to Chicago. The revitalization effort, she says, “is an important layer added to it, because it’s going to be like a vacation town.” With so much change coming, the prospect of gentrification and displacement inevitably pops up. Will Michigan City’s evolution into a resort-and-retirement town push out long-established residents? It’s a potentially volatile issue in a small, postindustrial city where 28% of residents are Black and the poverty rate of 21% is nearly twice the national level. Episodes of unrest in the city’s past, both decades ago and in recent years, highlighted resentments among the Black community over issues such as policing. It’s not hard to envision the possibility that those resentments might fuel a backlash against the transformation program if Black residents or members of other marginalized groups feel excluded from or negatively affected by a city initiative that brings in a lot of new residents and drives up housing costs. Hulse believes careful planning can not only prevent displacement but accomplish the opposite: attract new residents with moderate incomes as well as the affluent. “People shouldn’t have to drive in from Chesterton to work in Michigan City restaurants,” he says. The two towns are 15 miles apart. “We want them to live here and work here,” Hulse says. Working with the Brookings Institution, Michigan City officials and a cluster of nonprofits in August released a road map, called Vibrant Michigan City, Economic Prosperity for All. Its goals include “create housing options for all, specifically safe and affordable options” and “develop job readiness skills and eliminate barriers to employment.” “If we’re going to make all this change, we have to do it for all, not for some,” Hulse says. In the short term, that includes being emphatic that applicants must include a grocery store and an affordable housing element when responding to a request for proposals that will go out in January for development of an empty 3-acre parcel adjacent to the downtown blocks. Later, if the city gets control of the land vacated by the prison or by NIPSCO, “we’ll have the same idea,” he says, “that even on these prime pieces of land you’re going to have to do something for us if you want our approval.” Hulse also wants to ensure small-business entrepreneurs get a piece of the pie. What he’s been telling them, he says, is “go over to Chicago and look at the (neighborhood) train stations. What are the businesses within a mile that are doing well? Coffee shops, financial services? Bring us some of those.”

MIGRANTS From Page 3

Chicago residents, are already dealing with a seasonal uptick of COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus cases, says Stephanie Willding, the CEO of CommunityHealth, another migrant care provider. While organizations like CommunityHealth are working to vaccinate migrants against COVID and the flu, many remain unvaccinated, providers say. Adding to the challenge is that while living in crowded police stations, sick migrants also usually don’t have room to isolate and prevent infecting others. And once sick, migrants, and especially children, lacking adequate shelter may struggle to recover from respiratory illnesses. “Kids need sleep to get better. Kids need rest to get better. Kids need appropriate food and fluids to get better,” says Dr. Kate Laslo, a physician and a site medical director at Erie Family Health Centers. “Those things are not always available in these situations where kids are living.” Laslo adds that when children are recovering from one virus, they are at a higher risk of catching another, which could lead to more serious illnesses down the road. “With back-to-back infections, you’re more likely to have inflammation in the lungs that can

lead to wheezing … or pneumonia,” Laslo says. While frostbite can affect people of all ages, Laslo says children are particularly vulnerable. “No one should be living on the streets in Chicago in the winter, period,” Laslo says. “But kids are at much higher risk of frostbite, just because they are smaller, they lose more of their heat through skin—they are not able to maintain their temperature like adults do.” Cook County Health, which has been supplying the majority of migrant health care, says it has so far not seen an uptick in cold-related visits to Stroger or Provident hospital by migrants, but that its door are “always open for any person in need of medical care, regardless of ability to pay or immigration status.”

Thousands of patient visits Cook County Health has cared for more than 15,000 new arrival patients and provided nearly 68,000 visits across the health system since September 2022. Dangerously cold weather piles on top of injuries some migrants endured on their journey to Chicago. Willding says CommunityHealth has treated migrants with deep contusions, twisted ankles and other physical injuries. “They experienced a very treacherous journey to come to the United States and hadn’t re-

Migrants are sleeping in tents outside Chicago police stations. I WTTW NEWS

ceived treatment for those injuries,” she says. Aside from physical ailments, many migrants are likely experiencing mental and emotional challenges as they navigate the

“trauma of scarcity” in an unfamiliar environment, Willding says. “This is just a really a horrible experience for these folks,” she says.

“We need to get people indoors. We need to get people coats. We need to get people hats,” Willding continued. “We need to keep people warm and safe.”

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NOVEMBER 6, 2023 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | 7

Field Museum receives $20 million gift for education initiatives The donation made by the Sue Ling Gin Foundation Trust is one of the largest single contributions to the museum and the largest for its education department By Corli Jay

The Field Museum received a $20 million donation to go toward initiatives in student education and programming. The gift, which was presented during an annual benefit gala for the museum on Oct. 21, is one of the largest single donations to the museum and the largest for its education department. It was made by the Sue Ling Gin Foundation Trust, named for the

businesswoman who founded the Chicago-based Flying Food Group and was a Field Museum trustee. The gift is part of an effort to raise $40 million in new funding for educational programs and field trips, according to a press release from the Field Museum. During the gala, the museum also revealed it would name its education department after Gin. “This extraordinary demonstration of generosity from the

Sue Ling Gin Foundation Trust will ensure that every Chicago child experiences the thrill of discovery with the Field Museum,” Julian Siggers, president and CEO of the museum, said in a statement. “It is our distinct honor to recognize this investment by naming the Sue Ling Gin Center for Education & Public Programs.” During the gala, the museum presented the foundation with the Marshall Field V Award for Distin-

The gift is part of an effort to raise $40 million in new funding for educational programs and field trips, according to a press release from the Field Museum. I GETTY IMAGES

guished Leadership. The award was accepted by Field Museum Trustee David L. Cotton, who announced the $20 million gift. In addition to founding the Flying Food Group, Gin was a real estate investor with hold-

ings in the West Loop and near Chicago’s Midway International Airport. She passed away in 2014 after suffering a stroke. The museum opened the Chinese-style Sue Ling Gin Garden in her honor a year later.

Marilyn Katz was a megaphone for progressive causes Running her own communications firm and op-ed factory, she helped elect Mayor Harold Washington and President Barack Obama decades after protesting segregation and the Vietnam War as a political outsider By Steven R. Strahler

Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

Marilyn Katz, an unabashedly progressive activist who helped elect Harold Washington and Barack Obama to office decades after she protested the Vietnam War and racial segregation as a political outsider, died Oct. 26 after being hospitalized with pneumonia. She was 78 and had been diagnosed with COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to associates. Katz ran her own communications firm and op-ed factory, and her relationships with reporters and others were both fierce and friendly, starting with “Hi, it’s Marilyn!” as she pushed an agenda that ranged from affordable housing to peace in the Middle East. She was an organizer of the Civic Center rally in 2002 protesting the looming war in Iraq that proved a turning point in Obama’s political career, when the then-state senator spoke, separating himself from prevailing political orthodoxy. “You look at almost any progressive political campaign or social action organization in the last half-century, and she was in the middle of it — if she didn’t organize it,” said Don Rose, a political consultant who met Katz at the 1968 Democratic National Convention here. She was a member of Students for a Democratic Society, organizing protesting high school students, Rose said, and he was a spokesman for the National

Pushing an agenda

8 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Katz was involved in a laundry list of causes: the low-income housing tax credit as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986; the redevelopment of Historic Pullman on the city’s Far South Side; the environmental cleanup of a former gas plant site in Oak Park; and even settlement of a musicians strike against the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “To the very end, she was weighing in on things that were happening in the Middle East,” said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a longtime friend and political ally. Advising the 1983 campaign of Chicago’s first Black mayor, Katz confronted the task of defining the accomplishments and promise of candidate Washington when opponents were eager to focus on his race exclusively. “Our media strategy had to walk that fine line, making it clear who Harold was, (that) Harold was not a racist himself,” said Jacky Grimshaw, who became Mayor Washington’s director of intergovernmental relations; she’s now vice president of governmental affairs at the Center for Neighborhood Technology. “Coming up with political strategies was almost second nature to her.” David Axelrod, later a top Obama strategist, covered the Washington campaign when he was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. “If you didn’t share

her point of view, she was relentlessly trying to change your point of view,” he recalled. “Marilyn, more than any sort of communications operative, was just in your face, challenging you to cover the race, challenging you to cover her angle of the race. She was this short, cherubic woman who was like a gale force wind. She could go right at you . . . and then disarm you with a smile.” Affordable housing was such a passion for her that she allied with the Richard M. Daley administration to push for it, despite having protested the tactics of Daley’s father at the ’68 convention and being involved in the successful effort to unseat the Illinois delegation he headed at the 1972 Democratic convention. “We had a lot of laughs about that,” said Rose. “She claimed she had a salutary effect on him,” referring to the younger Daley. Brian Berg, who worked at Katz’s firm, MK Communications, said Katz hosted a fundraiser for a Republican congressman, who later challenged Hillary Clinton for a U.S. senate seat, because he supported the low-income housing tax credit. “It really aligned with her basic values, which were small “d” and large “D” democratic values — that people should have decent housing, good jobs and be able to lead good lives,” said Andrew Mooney, a former commissioner of the city’s Department of Planning & Development and former executive

Marilyn Katz in 2016 I PHOTO BY ANTONIO DICKEY

director of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., which provided grants and consultation to neighborhood community development organizations. “We spent most of our time arguing, but at the end of the day we knew we loved each other and would support each other.”

Organizing Katz was an undergraduate at Northwestern University when she joined SDS and put together an Uptown project for the organization. In April 1968 she organized local demonstrations against the war, which led to a

position as deputy head of security for convention protesters four months later. “It had been a hard decade and an even harder spring,” Katz wrote in a Crain’s op-ed in 2021. “Born at the end of World War II, we were a generation brought up to believe America at home and abroad was the defender of democracy. Yet the reality was a bullying nation waging war on a people who seemed only to want what we had fought the English for and lynching, bombing and beating those who wanted their equal rights as Americans.”

Joyce Foundation’s president and CEO to step down next year The organization, which champions gun violence prevention, public education, journalism and more, plans to start searching in January to replace longtime leader Ellen Alberding By Brandon Dupré

One of Chicago’s largest foundations, which champions gun violence prevention, environmental protections around the Great Lakes, public education and more, will be searching for a new leader for the first time in more than two decades. Ellen Alberding, president and CEO of the Joyce Foundation, announced Nov. 2 that she will be stepping down in 2024 after 22 years of helming the organization. The foundation said it will begin its next CEO search in January, with Alberding, 66, continuing to lead the organization until a successor is named. After completing a five-year strategy plan, Alberding said it made sense for a new CEO to step in and participate in the development of the organization’s next strategic planning process. “We have an incredibly good team in place, and we have a really

nice asset base to move forward,” Alberding said, “so the organization is in a really nice position for new leadership.” The organization oversees some $65 million in annual grant distributions, with assets of $1.3 billion, and is Chicago’s sixth-largest foundation, according to Crain’s research. The next leader will also have some big shoes to fill, picking up and supporting critical causes in education, environmentalism, gun violence prevention and justice reform, to name a few.

‘Some really big issues’ Under Alberding’s leadership, the Joyce Foundation was an early and large funder of gun violence prevention research and policy development. The organization — traditionally oriented to education, criminal justice and journalism initiatives — has been successful in responding to societal needs and trailblazing efforts. In 2021, following the COVID-19

outbreak and the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer, the foundation pledged $250 million over five years to redouble its emphasis on racial equity and economic mobility issues. And as COVID took a toll on Chicago’s education system, the foundation responded with millions in grants. “We’ve taken on some really big issues over time, including issues that some people thought were too high-risk or possibly even hopeless,” Alberding said. “I’m really proud that the foundation has absorbed those risks and maintained its focus on these issues because you can actually drive down gun violence and make big impact changes over time.” Alberding helped launch new initiatives in the foundation’s commitment to education like Advance Illinois and the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, initiatives that prepare students for college and professional careers.

Ellen Alberding I PHOTO BY STEPHEN J. SERIO

Alberding, who began at the foundation in 1990, is an independent director of the PGIM Mutual Fund’s board of directors, a member of the Loyola University Chicago board of trustees, a member of the Chicago Public Education Fund’s

board of directors and a founding board member of Advance Illinois. The Joyce Foundation sponsors the monthly Crain’s Forum series in Crain’s Chicago Business, Crain’s Detroit Business and Crain’s Cleveland Business.

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Lurie Children’s Heart Center welcomes internationally-renowned heart surgeon and researcher David Winlaw, MBBS, MD, FRACS, as its Cardiovascular-Thoracic Surgery Division Head and Surgical Co-Executive Director. David Winlaw, MD, is a surgical innovator and thought leader in the field of pediatric congenital heart disease. His clinical interests include the underlying causes and outcomes of pediatric congenital heart conditions. Dr. Winlaw joins Lurie Children’s from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati, where he served as the Associate Director in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Heart Institute and Professor of Surgery.

NOVEMBER 6, 2023 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | 9

P EDITORIAL

Cooking up a double whammy for Chicago’s restaurant operators

DANIEL BRADLEY/UNSPLASH

sk a chamber of commerce official in any neighborhood anywhere in the city — from Pullman to Rogers Park, Austin to Lakeview — to list the key ingredients necessary to create a vibrant commercial center, and you’ll find restaurants are at or near the top of the list. In addition to providing employment and creating foot traffic that feeds other nearby businesses, thriving restaurants help create a sense of place, even in areas that some people don’t always think of as neighborhoods — such as the Loop. In the central business district in particular, the restaurant scene is making a tentative comeback, but with many spaces still vacant and office workers scarce on some days of the week, it’s still nowhere near as vibrant as it was in the pre-pandemic era. All of which are reasons to worry about one ordinance that just passed the City Council and one that’s coming down the pike. First, the tipped-wage increase that won approval on Oct. 6 and, soon, the paid-time off proposal that looks likely to win aldermanic approval in a matter of days. Taken together, they amount to a double whammy on restaurant operators. That’s bad news for every neighborhood in the city, including downtown. But a city that’s staked much of its reputation on being a globally recognized culinary destination, this self-inflicted one-two punch could cause lasting pain. The details of the tipped-wage ordinance have been fairly well-hashed over by now, but here are the broad outlines: Tipped workers in Chicago will see their base wage increased over the next five

years to match the city’s minimum wage. In the meantime, until the tipped wage equals the city’s minimum wage, restaurant owners must make up the difference if a tipped worker’s hourly wage does not reach the city’s minimum wage when tips are included. Now comes a proposal, pushed by the Chicago Federation of Labor and other union advocates, to provide all workers in Chicago 10 paid days off starting next year, a policy that will become the most expan-

sive paid leave system of any big city in the country and doubles the number of days the city currently requires employers to provide. The ordinance, which looks likely to pass, includes up to five sick days and up to five days off for any reason, accrued at one hour for every 35 hours worked. Up to 10 sick days can be rolled over annually, with two days of paid time off rolled over. Companies with more than 100 employees will be required to pay out up to seven

unused days off when a worker ends his or her employment. Small businesses — defined as those with 50 or fewer employees — would be exempt from having to pay out unused days off to workers when they exit the company, and there would be a two-year phase-in of the required payout for companies with 50 to 100 workers. That small-business carve-out may help mom-and-pop restaurant operators withstand the additional cost of this measure. But a good swath of the restaurant operators in this city have more than 100 employees — and, for them, having to pay out unused days off every time an employee exits could represent a significant hit to their bottom lines. The restaurant business is a notoriously tough one, of course. Margins are julienne-thin: at full-service restaurants, typically 3% to 5%. Restaurant operators warn that they may be forced to add a surcharge to bills to accommodate the increased labor costs of operating in Chicago. Worse than that, however, is the prospect that larger restaurant groups may bypass Chicago altogether, preferring instead to explore opportunities in other markets such as Nashville, Texas, Arizona, Florida and the Carolinas. As one restaurateur with a multi-state presence put it to Crain’s recently, “the ones that are out of the conversation now are Chicago, New York, L.A. or California.” At a time when so many Chicago neighborhoods need the economic lift that the hospitality industry provides, our City Hall continues to find ways to make just about everything harder for these operators. And that hurts more than just the restaurant operators themselves.

PERSONAL VIEW

Mental health support for youth shows real results

hicago’s children have spoken: Their mental health is at risk. They need support. And they’re not finding it at school. That’s the hard truth we take away from a survey of 700 Chicagoans, ages 10 to 24, conducted by Global Strategy Group on behalf of my organization, A Better Chicago. We asked these young people how they see themselves, their schools, their future. We asked them what they need to be successful. We learned a lot. But one area in particular cries out for urgent action from all of us: ◗ 71% of those who took the survey said mental health and well-being is a major problem for young people. And 13% of those who didn’t graduate from high school said mental health was the main factor. Also:

◗ 97% said social and emotional skills will

be important to them in the workforce 10 years from now, yet only 59% said their schools are teaching them those skills. Only reading and writing were ranked higher, at 98%. ◗ 48% said schools are equipping them with “the ability to tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations,” though 96% said those skills will be important in 10 years. ◗ 71% said they’ve participated in youth programs outside of school. And while they gave schools high marks for teaching academic skills such as math, reading and writing or foreign languages, they said nonschool programs did a better job of helping them with social-emotional and coping skills as well as communication, collaboration, critical thinking and decision-making. Teachers and counselors are low on the

list of people kids believe would be most helpful if they had a problem. Instead, they’d turn to parents, peers, therapists, siblings or other relatives. One likely reason young people look elsewhere is that schools aren’t staffed to provide the support they need, especially given the lingering trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic. Chicago Public Schools’ fiscal 2024 budget includes $15 million to add counselors at more than 100 high-need schools and $13 million for more social workers, nurses and case workers. That’s money well spent. But it’s also important to meet kids where they are — whether that means the classroom, an after-school sports program or a homeless shelter where they’re living with family. Our survey results provide a strong argument to double down on that approach.

Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited. Send letters to Crain’s Chicago Business, 130 E. Randolph St., Suite 3200, Chicago, IL 60601, or email us at letters@chicagobusiness.com. Please include your full name, the city from which you’re writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes. 10 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Youth development programs are at the heart of our mission at A Better Chicago. We’re a “venture philanthropy”: We raise money and invest it in promising nonprofits that lift children out of poverty, building a stronger and more vibrant city for all of us. Our portfolio includes programs that keep young people occupied and safe, while teaching them interpersonal and social-emotional skills like empathy, teamwork and emotional regulation. They learn how to build relationships and make decisions. They have conversations with trusted adults who help them map out their futures. We know these programs work because we track their results. For example: Chicago Hopes for Kids’ Literacy Leaders See SUPPORT on Page 11

Sound off: Send a column for the Opinion page to editor@chicagobusiness.com. Please include a phone number for verification purposes, and limit submissions to 425 words or fewer.

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PERSONAL VIEW

Property tax payers should not subsidize nursing homes

s reported in Crain’s, Illinois’ for-profit nursing home industry wants to change the state’s property tax law to cut its taxes by nearly two-thirds, while shifting that tax burden onto Cook County residents, homeowners and other businesses (“Fight over nursing home taxes could affect homeowners,” Oct. 23). On behalf of our 400,000 members in Cook County and all people 50-plus, AARP Illinois strongly opposes this proposed legislation. House Bill 2507 allows nursing home owners to once again pad their pockets, at the expense of resident quality of care. The difference this time around is twofold. First, Cook County residents, homeowners and other businesses alike, would have to pay potentially hundreds of millions more in

property taxes to cover the nursing homes’ new tax savings windfall. Second, the bill does not hold nursing homes accountable for improving care for residents with all this new money they’ll be saving. This is especially alarming as nursing homes continue to fail to meet requirements, such as providing minimum staffing, year over year. Additionally, if passed into law, the property tax break for nursing homes has no way of distinguishing between nursing homes that are providing quality care and meeting expected care standards for residents and those that are not. This means Illinois could end up rewarding nursing homes that owe the state fines caused by violations in meeting quality of care.

That is particularly concerning, considering AARP Illinois consistently hears heartbreaking stories from nursing home residents. A 2021 Department of Healthcare & Family Services analysis indicated that at least 40% more Black and Brown Medicaid customers in nursing facilities perished than their white counterparts. For-profit nursing homes are clearly a commercial property use, so it’s inappropriate to equate them with residential properties for property tax purposes. The legislation recognizes this, since it doesn’t attempt to add commercial nursing homes to the residential property tax class. Instead, it uses a backdoor method of declaring that properties classified as nursing homes

“shall not be assessed at a higher level of assessment than residential property.” AARP Illinois commends Gov. J.B. Pritzker for vetoing this legislation and implores the Illinois General Assembly to uphold his veto. Cook County residents, who already pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, should not have to pay even higher taxes to give already-wealthy nursing home owners a tax break, especially one that would not provide a higher level of quality care for those who live in and rely on those facilities for their health, safety and well-being. Philippe Largent is the state director of AARP Illinois.

SUPPORT From Page 10

program provides after-school math and reading support to middle schoolers who are experiencing homelessness or in temporary living situations. Last year, 45% of those students improved by at least one grade level on literacy assessments and 38% did so in math. Alternatives Inc. offers mental health screening and services for students and training for school staffers through its SEEIT (Systemic Evaluation, Enhancement & Institutional Training) program in 12 schools. Last year, those schools reported decreases in school disciplinary incidents (7%), drug-related incidents (5%) and interpersonal violence (15%), along with a 9% increase in attendance. All of this underscores the importance of embedding a mental health component in all youth programs. And it especially highlights the need for investment — public, private and philanthropic — in community-based programs that support kids in and out of school. We also need to provide resources to help adults support the children in their care. Social workers provided by the Juvenile Protective Association’s Connect 2 Kids (C2K) program, for example, help teachers understand and respond to high-need students. Last year, C2K partnered with 20 schools, serving 101 teachers — 85% of whom said they were better able to support their students as a result; 79% said C2K improved their approach to working with parents. So, yes to more counselors, more social workers, more nurses. But we also must lean into programs that kids tell us are working now. We must create and expand opportunities for them to learn and play while interacting with mentors who prepare them to cope with the challenges of adulthood. Chicago’s young people recognize the relationship between mental health and success. They’ve told us they’re struggling, and they can’t always find the help they need. Their future — and ours — depends on that support. Let’s make sure they get it.

Lafarge is now Holcim.

From our aggregate quarries to our slag and cement facilities, all of our Lafarge operations are now Holcim. The same great people and products you know and trust are part of a leader in innovative and sustainable solutions. Together, we’re developing new ways to build smarter, build greener and build progress for people and the planet. Learn more at holcim.us.

#FollowUsForward A LEADER IN INNOVATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDING SOLUTIONS.

Beth Swanson is CEO of A Better Chicago. NOVEMBER 6, 2023 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | 11

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Advertising Section To place your listing, visit www.chicagobusiness.com/peoplemoves or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

ACCOUNTING

ARCHITECTURE / DESIGN

LAW FIRM

BDO USA, P.C., Chicago

ORBA, Chicago

Kahler Slater, Chicago

Taft Stettinius & Hollister, Chicago

BDO USA, P.C. has named Brad Ellison Client Engagement Principal in the firm’s BDO Digital practice. Ellison has more than 10 years of strategic leadership experience, which he brings to his role within the firm’s IT Solutions practice. With deep and practical experience in cybersecurity, cloud and infrastructure, coupled with an unwavering focus on client experience, Ellison drives go-to-market strategies and works hand in hand with his customers to help them succeed and thrive.

ORBA, one of Chicago’s largest public accounting firms, welcomes Carrie Hale and Tommy Nguyen to the firm. Carrie joins the firm’s Accounting Services Group as an Accounting Hale Services Senior. She specializes in all aspects of the accounting services function, including accounts payable/ accounts receivable, as well as maintaining and balancing accounts and reconciliations. Nguyen Tommy Nguyen joins the firm’s Audit Group as an Audit Associate. He has experience related to year-end audits and balance sheet and credit card reconciliations.

Kahler Slater is pleased to announce Lorraine Kasznia, AIA, has joined as Principal and Workplace Practice Leader. In this role, Lorraine will lead Kahler Slater’s workplace market, leveraging over 25 years of design, management, and academic experience. She is passionate about creating workplaces that enhance the employee experience. She will leverage the firm’s design process and significant portfolio in workplace projects by providing strategic advisory and design leadership to clients.

Taft welcomes Melissa Borom to the firm’s Chicago Public Affairs Strategies Group. As a senior director of public affairs, Melissa works closely with clients on developing public policy strategies and leverages her relationships with federal, state, and local officials.

Croke Fairchild Duarte & Beres LLC, Chicago

ACCOUNTING

CONSTRUCTION

BDO USA, P.C., Chicago BDO USA, P.C. has named Thomas LeClair Global Employer Services Tax Principal in the firm’s Specialized Tax Services practice. LeClair leads BDO USA’s national employment tax practice and has 15 years of experience in federal and multi-state employment tax compliance, payroll operations, and advising clients on employment tax issues and opportunities in connection with mergers, acquisitions and restructuring.

ACCOUNTING BDO USA, P.C., Chicago BDO USA, P.C. has named Laura Sceerey Principal in the firm’s BDO Digital practice. With a decade of consulting experience, she specializes in delivering tailored solutions that directly align with clients’ business requirements. Sceerey oversees crucial customer engagements, ensuring clarity and well-defined business outcomes. Leveraging her expertise, she designs, implements and evaluates effective technology solutions while continuously evolving her approach to stay ahead of clients’ needs.

Northern Builders, Inc., Schiller Park

ARCHITECTURE / CONSTRUCTION Wight & Company, Chicago Wight is pleased to announce Senior Management promotions in advancing our Integrated Design & Delivery model. Nick Sleboda has more than a decade of experience Sleboda leading some of our largest, most complex projects. As Director of Construction Operations, Nick will advance our operations for Wight Construction and elevate the integration with our other disciplines. Zolecki Matt Zolecki, as our new Director of Integrated Services, will build on his experience leading interdisciplinary projects in all our markets. Matt will drive the evolution of our Design Led - Design Build approach which provides design excellence and unprecedented savings of time and money for our clients.

Northern Builders, Inc. is pleased to announce the hiring of Matthias J. Trizna as Vice President of Development and Sales. Matthias is responsible for all development initiatives including land acquisitions, leasing, strategic joint ventures, and sales. Matthias brings 10 years of experience to Northern’s team.

LAW FIRM Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP, Chicago Marshall Gerstein is pleased to welcome Sammy G. Duncan, Ph.D., an associate in the Chemical Sciences practice. He brings more than two decades of experience as a patent prosecutor to the firm. Sammy’s experience spans across the full spectrum of chemical arts such as R&D based small molecule applications through consumer products to chemical processes and formulations.

LAW FIRM Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP, Chicago

ACCOUNTING

ARCHITECTURE / DESIGN

MZI Group Inc., Chicago

FGM Architects, Chicago

We are pleased to announce the promotion of Clarissa Colletti to the position of Controller at MZI Group Inc. Clarissa has been an integral part of our organization for the past five years, consistently demonstrating exceptional dedication and expertise in her role as Accounting Manager. In her new role, Clarissa will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of our financial management and reporting, playing a pivotal role in shaping the financial direction of our organization.

FGM Architects announces that Trudy Mesik, AIA has joined the firm as Senior Project Architect in its Higher Education practice. Mesik has 20+ years of design and project management experience in higher education, PK-12, healthcare, corporate and faith-based design. Previous clients include Malcolm X College and Chicago Public Schools. She received her B.A. degree from the U of Illinois Chicago followed by an M. Architecture degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

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Krista Solano joined Marshall Gerstein as a law clerk this year, and now serves as an associate supporting the firm’s Trademarks practice. She handles matters related to trade dress infringement, counterfeiting claims, and UDRP complaints.

To order frames or plaques of profiles contact Lauren Melesio at lmelesio@crain.com or 212-210-0707

LEGAL Benesch, Chicago William Cassin has joined Benesch as Of Counsel in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. William has over seventeen years of experience as an attorney specializing in IP law, with nine years spent as either the head or sole inhouse U.S. IP counsel for two different global multinational corporations. His practice covers all areas of IP law, including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret.

LEGAL Benesch, Chicago Elizabeth Barras has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group. Elizabeth focuses her practice on a wide range of commercial Barras real estate matters in various asset classes. She has experience representing clients in complex real estate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and leasing. Benjamin J. Carbery has joined Benesch Carbery as an Associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. Ben focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation. He also has a pro bono practice providing criminal defense to juveniles and emerging adults in Chicago.

LEGAL Benesch, Chicago Danielle Maldonado has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. Danielle has experience defending and counseling employers in labor and employment Maldonado matters, including individual plaintiff and representative action litigation, wage and hour litigation, and compliance and workforce-related counseling. Joshua Trosch has Trosch joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group. Joshua advises his clients on matters related to corporate governance, securities, and real estate law. He provides his clients with high-level legal solutions for fund formation, acquisitions and dispositions, and debt financing.

Croke Fairchild Duarte & Beres welcomes Jim Kunick to the firm as senior counsel in the Intellectual Property, Privacy & Technology Transactions practice group. Jim has more than 25 years of experience representing both customers and providers over a broad array of complex commercial, aviation and airlines, intellectual property, telecommunications, and technology transactions. He previously served as Assistant General Counsel of Capgemini North America, a global technology service provider.

RETAIL Buccellati, Chicago Brian Morrow has been appointed Boutique Director of the renowned high jewelry brand Buccellati, located on Chicago’s luxurious East Oak Street in the historic Gold Coast neighborhood. Previously, Brian has held positions at Neiman Marcus as the Precious Jewels Salon Manager and at Saks Fifth Avenue as the Fine and Estate Jewelry Manager. Additionally, Brian holds a certificate of AJP from the GIA. The expertise and knowledge Brian brings to Buccellati will undoubtedly add value to the client experience and the Chicago boutique.

SOFTWARE / CLOUD-BASED TECH Copado, Chicago Copado has hired Bob Grewal as its Chief Revenue Officer. In this role, Grewal will be responsible for all facets of global revenue and field operations to scale Copado’s international growth and deliver on customer satisfaction. With over 15 years of senior leadership experience at companies like Qualys, Zylo and Congo, Grewal brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in scaling and building high-performance teams in the software industry. TECHNOLOGY Hyzon Motors, Bolingbrook Stephen Weiland has been named Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Hyzon, a high-power hydrogen fuel cell technology developer and zero-emission, heavyduty fuel cell electric vehicle supplier. Weiland will oversee Hyzon’s financial operations, including financial planning and analysis, accounting, treasury, investor relations, and IT. He brings two decades of experience at companies including BOOM Supersonic and Caterpillar, leading financial operations as CFO, driving diverse growth capital programs, executing transactions in Cleantech, and implementing critical financial processes. Weiland starts November 1, 2023.

11/2/23 9:55 AM

Luxury retailer Hermès reopens Oak Street store The high-end store is reopening after undergoing a year of renovations to expand the space at its Near North Side location By Corli Jay

Luxury retail store Hermès was to welcome shoppers back to its Near North Side location Oct. 30. The retailer is reopening after undergoing a year of renovations to expand the space at 25 E. Oak St., the Chicago Tribune reports. The store operated from a temporary location nearby while awaiting updates. The store was originally set to reopen Oct. 27 but was pushed back due to unforeseen circumstances, according to a representative with Hermès. With an expanded storefront, the high-end retailer plans to target wealthy shoppers who find themselves with more disposable cash since the pandemic, according to John Vance, principal at Stone Real Estate. “There were a lot of people who thought, ‘I’m rich, but I can no longer spend money the way I like, and still want to enjoy some of the best things in life, so instead of fancy vacations, I’ll buy at these luxury stores,’” Vance told the Tribune.

The store’s reopening further strengthens the Oak Street corridor, which is home to other luxury brands such as Prada and Armani. Other retailers have fled Michigan Avenue for Oak Street recently, including Chanel, Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier. Meanwhile, Michigan Avenue, a longtime downtown shopping destination, has struggled with a glut of new vacancies. The Signature Room at the former John Hancock Center closed citing “economic issues” in September. The poorly performing Water Tower Place on the strip is also shifting away from retail. But Vance believes that the bustle of Oak Street can help to resurge Michigan Avenue as retailers are set to fill up vacancies next year. “That’s going to show other retailers that you don’t have to be on the Gold Coast, that you can go to the avenue and perform very well there,” Vance said to the Tribune. The new Hermès storefront and interior on Oak Street. I PHOTOS BY SAM FROST

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NOVEMBER 6, 2023 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | 13

A contemporary home with sustainable features, all built inside the limestone walls of a former monument company near Rosehill Cemetery, is on the market at just under $4 million I By Dennis Rodkin

ust in time for Halloween, a house made out of the remains of an old tombstone factory went up for sale last week. Mike Quinlan is asking just under $4 million for the house, a five-bedroom, roughly 7,500-square-foot contemporary he built inside the limestone walls of Anderson Monument Company beginning in 2017. It’s represented by Morgan McDermott of Coldwell Banker. The exterior limestone walls are from the early 1900s and appear to have been remodeled later in an art nouveau look, but Anderson — later called Anderson-Eifel Monument Company — occupied the Ravenswood Avenue site from the late 1850s until the late 20th century, according to old Chicago Tribune articles. The name of the company is still there, carved in the limestone facade. The house is across the street from Rosehill Cemetery, which opened in 1859, the same year that land developer and lumberyard owner John Anderson opened the monument company. There are tales of ghosts at the cemetery, but “the dead weren’t here,” Quinlan says. Anderson-Eifel “just made and sold tombstones, so there’s nothing like that here.” He adds that “I’ve never heard chiseling, so that’s good news.” It’s not clear when Anderson-Eifel closed, but it was sometime in the 1970s or 1980s. Newspaper ads were still appearing for the tombstone company in 1973, but by 1986, its building on the corner of Ravenswood Avenue and Rosehill Drive was in

another use, according to the Cook County clerk’s records. For some years, the building was operated as a cooperative artists’ studio. In 2016, Quinlan bought it through a land trust, paying $790,000, according to the clerk. The exterior walls, he says, “were beautiful and of course I wanted to keep them,” but the interior was in poor condition. He tapped Foster Dale Architects to design a new home within the old walls that has an internal courtyard, a rooftop deck and several sustainable features, including solar photovoltaic panels on the roof and geothermal climate control systems, which rely on stable temperatures below ground to cool water for the systems in the summer and warm it in the winter, reducing the reliance on conventional fuels. Keeping the facade meant that visitors enter the house beneath an old lunette window whose leaded glass pattern looks, appropriately, like a cobweb. The architects reused some elements of the old building in the new one, including light fixtures and the safe, and paid homage to it with transoms above some doors and windows, like the ones it had. Quinlan said he’s selling because after divorcing his husband, he found the house too large to live in alone. The house, he said, “is on a big corner lot in a quiet neighborhood.” Having a vast cemetery filled with handsome old monuments and tall trees across the street adds to the calm, he said, but “if there’s ever a zombie apocalypse over there, I’m in trouble.”

The architects reused some elements of the old building in the new one, including light fixtures and the safe.

14 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

VHT STUDIOS PHOTOS

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How Joe Biden helped to reopen the Stellantis factory in Belvidere During a meeting over the summer in Chicago, the president said to a local UAW boss: ‘Tell me what’s going on in Belvidere’ By John Pletz

CAREER OPPORTUNITY

Matt Frantzen wasn’t optimistic that the Stellantis factory in Belvidere would make vehicles again until he got a call last summer, telling him to go the Old Post Office for a meeting. When he walked into the room, President Joe Biden asked him to “tell me what’s going on in Belvidere.” “He flat-out said he was going to reach out to Stellantis to see what we need to do keep the plant open,” Frantzen, president of the UAW local at the factory, recalled last week after the United Auto Workers reached a deal with Stellantis in which the company said it would reopen the plant, which was idled in February, putting 1,350 people out of work.

Foster pitch Before Frantzen met Biden, the president also got a pitch to save the plant from U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, who represents Belvidere. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Stellantis — the parent company of Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep

UAW From Page 1

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reopening the Belvidere plant near Rockford, which will transition to producing electric vehicles and batteries, doubling employment to more than 3,000. The UAW didn’t achieve its pipe dream of getting 40 hours pay for 32 hours of work. However, it all but killed off the two-tier wage system that was adopted during the Great Recession that nearly toppled the Big Three. Under that system, new workers were paid nearly half of what veterans made. The UAW got rid of dual tiers in its contract with Deere after a five-week strike in 2021. In the six-week strike against the Big Three, autoworkers got the minimum pay for temporary workers raised to $24.91 an hour. The Teamsters earlier this year got the United Parcel Service to boost pay for part-timers to $21 an hour. “They started from a low point, and their expectations were high,” Marick Masters, an organized labor expert and professor at Wayne State University’s Ilitch School of Business in Detroit, says of the UAW. “There will be a faction disappointed that they didn’t hold out for more. But when I compare it to contracts across the board, their demands were more sweeping and substantive in their future import.” Like their colleagues making

— now plans to build an electric truck at Belvidere and open a battery plant, investing billions of dollars and bringing employment to more than 3,000. “No one saw this happening,” said Frantzen, who was elected president of the UAW Local 1268 in May, three months after most of the workers were laid off. “If you look at history, once a plant is identified to be idled, it doesn’t reopen. That’s how it happened in St. Louis and Syracuse.” The company’s decision to reopen the plant is the result of a two-year effort by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and local officials, which ultimately enlisted the state’s congressional delegation and the White House to come up with a package of incentives to keep the Belvidere operation alive. Pritzker and his staff served as a conduit between the company and the White House as they worked on ways to keep the plant going, including a federal grant program that was part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which focused on climate change and ways to move away from fossil fuels. “This is exactly what the Biden administration created this grant farm equipment at Deere and delivering packages at UPS or flying planes at United, autoworkers wanted to win back concessions made in previous deals when their employers were struggling.

Worker leverage With the companies earning record profits but struggling to find workers in a historically tight labor market, unions seized their opportunity to reset the bar more in their favor. Rarely had contracts expired when companies were undeniably making huge amounts of money. “They’ve all done really well, because they all have enormous strike leverage because companies can’t easily replace them,” says Harry Katz, a collective-bargaining expert and a professor at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. (Pilots, meanwhile, can’t easily strike because of federal law, but they have outsized leverage because of their direct impact on airline operations at a time when air travel demand is high and federal regulators are watching closely.) “The companies have more to lose when there is strong demand for their products, and they have money in the bank,” Katz says. “There’s a bigger pie to be shared, and the unions have more leverage.” The raises awarded to autoworkers, pilots and delivery drivers far

for: converting existing (internal combustion engine) facilities to EV capability,” the governor said.

Text messages It’s not yet clear how much money the feds or state and local governments will give Stellantis to rebuild and expand Belvidere, but it’s likely to be larger than the $536 million deal for Gotion HiTech’s battery-assembly plant in Manteno. Pritzker says he was getting text messages from Stellantis and White House staffers as negotiations went into overdrive and talks went into the wee hours of Oct. 26. “A lot of people did a lot of things to make this happen,” says Frantzen, who has worked at the plant since 1994, when it was owned by Chrysler. “It’s better than our membership could have hoped for.” “When they told us back in December they were moving up the date for idling the plant . . . we saw a lot of people who got laid off were given job offers and transfers to other locations. We didn’t think they were going to bring Belvidere online.” exceed the once-in-a-generation price increases made by airlines, automakers and delivery companies. Deutsche Bank recently estimated new UAW agreement will cost Ford $6.2 billion over the life of the contract, $7.2 billion at GM and $6.4 billion at Stellantis. Deere estimated its contract with the UAW would cost $3.5 billion over the life of the deal. The increase in costs hasn’t slowed the Moline-based equipment maker’s momentum. Through the first nine months of its current fiscal year, Deere’s sales are up 24%, outpacing a 17% increase in operating expenses, while profit is up 60%. Masters says Fain has his eyes on more than just getting a bigger slice of the pie at the Detroit Three. Fain called the new contracts “a turning point in the class war that has been raging in this country for the past 40 years.” Fain is looking beyond the Detroit Three to companies such as Honda, Toyota, Rivian and Tesla. “He’s viewing the raises as a means to an end, hoping to sell to foreign transplants, joint ventures and non-union EV producers like Tesla,” Masters says. “If they don’t organize those, that’s where the growth is going to be.” While the union won a historic battle, it’s still losing the war, Katz says. “The Achilles heel for the UAW is the tremendous growth in non-union content in vehicles.”

TAXES

Kaegi’s original estimate also veered far off the mark. Far from cratering in the wake of the pandemic, the residential housing market soared when residents fled from apartments to single-family homes. At the same time, commercial values have gone down, meaning homeowners have to pick up a larger share of the tab.

From Page 1

largest increase in 30 years, according to an analysis by the Cook County Treasurer’s Office. Property taxes for residential properties in the north and northwest suburbs rose 12.9%, increasing $387 million. Meanwhile, commercial property taxes in the same area are down by 2.7%, or $56 million. Not every property owner saw their taxes jump. About 22% of north suburban residents saw a decrease in their tax bills. After Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi hiked commercial property assessments in 2019, the pendulum has now swung in the other direction for residents in the north suburbs with the help of the Cook County Board of Review’s decision to cut almost 20% off the total assessed value of commercial and industrial properties set by the assessor.

‘Recapture law’

Reassessment Homeowners are now taking on the lion’s share of the tax burden countywide this year, with 81% of Cook County property owners paying higher taxes this year. Overall taxes in Cook County rose 5.4%, or $909 million, with residents taking on $599 million, or two-thirds, of that increase. The south and southwest suburbs, which the county is in the

ADVOCATE From Page 3

Chicagoland patient service area, which includes just three hospitals. Now reporting to Advocate Health’s Midwest President, Bill Santulli, Nichols’ challenge will be finding growth opportunities in the Illinois market amid industrywide headwinds that are raising expenses and squeezing profit margins, while also answering to a corporate leadership team based across the country in Charlotte. A headquarters move after a merger often means less attention and resources — and more job cuts — for local operations. The first African American to lead Advocate’s Illinois hospitals, Nichols says he wanted this role so that he can have a bigger impact on health care in Illinois, which he feels can be improved by what the merger and Atrium bring to the table. Yet, he says growth is his top priority. “What the merger has enabled us to start doing is to start looking at opportunities on a broader scale,” Nichols says. “Our main focus is how are we going to grow.” Nichols says he is still developing a strategy for the Illinois region, and the roadshow — an opportunity to take the pulse at Advocate facilities around the state — will help him set priorities. He says he will visit each hospital by mid-December to gather feedback from leaders and workers. Post-pandemic, health systems everywhere are still struggling to recruit and retain staff amid a 18 | CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Property taxes for residential properties in the north and northwest suburbs rose 12.9%, increasing $387 million. I VHT STUDIOS PHOTO

process of reassessing for next year, saw a $173 million increase in property taxes. Residential taxes in that area increased by 4.1%, or $98 million, and commercial property taxes went up by 5.1%, or $75 million. The county assesses three territories on a three-year rotating basis: workforce shortage — Advocate currently has about 2,000 job openings in Illinois — afford supplies and equipment in light of the recent inflation wave, and get patients to pay for care as Medicaid plans purge enrollees with the ending of pandemic-era protections, says Duane Fitch, national healthcare consulting practice leader at accounting firm Plante Moran. “The expense base has increased in a way that’s not supported by the revenue increases,” he says. “We’re seeing a lot of margin deterioration in the industry.” Nichols acknowledges that Advocate isn’t immune to industry pressures. “We’re well positioned but it doesn’t mean that these issues aren’t having major impacts on us,” he says. “Our margins are razor thin like everybody else.”

the city of Chicago, the northern suburbs and southern suburbs. The northern suburbs owe some of their dramatic spike in property taxes to this year’s reassessment. North suburban homeowners will have to adapt to the sticker shock after COVID adjustments

disappeared with this year’s assessment. At the start of the pandemic, Kaegi’s office reassessed home values by estimating neighborhood increases in unemployment, leading to a median cut of 10% across the county. Not only have those COVID adjustments now disappeared, but

School districts accounted for the largest increase in levies from Cook County’s taxing agencies, with a $572.9 million increase across the county. The Chicago Board of Education also sought almost $231.7 million, up 6.8% from last year. A little-known state tax law accounted for a sizable chunk of this year’s increases. The “recapture law” lets agencies such as school districts and local governments raise taxes to make up for money they paid taxpayers who successfully lowered their assessments through appeals. The law applies only to nonhome rule communities, so the city of Chicago is excluded. Other agencies within Chicago, however, can still participate and many reaped the benefits in this cycle. Chicago Public Schools took home nearly $50.8 million, and the Chicago Park District received over $4.7 million. Second-installment 2022 tax bills will be mailed Nov. 1 and due Dec. 1. still strong,” says Brian Sanderson, senior health care adviser at Crowe, a Chicago-based public accounting, consulting and technology firm. “It’s a more margin-positive option.”

‘No small feat’

Projects aimed at growth

Post-pandemic, health systems everywhere are still struggling to recruit and retain staff amid a workforce shortage. Advocate currently has about 2,000 job openings in Illinois. I ADVOCATE AURORA HEALTH

Financial figures for Advocate’s Illinois operations were unavailable, but a financial statement published in August shows that Advocate Aurora Health, which encompasses Illinois and Wisconsin, posted a 1.7% operating margin during the first six months of this year. That’s slightly better than the median of 1.4% for U.S. hospitals, according to consulting firm Kaufman Hall. Advocate Aurora Health reported more than $134 million in operating income for the sixmonth period, up from $51 million a year earlier. A spike in investment income boosted the unit’s excess revenue over expenses to $484 million, compared

with a shortfall of more than $600 million during the year-earlier period. Overall, Advocate Health posted $85.7 million in operating income and a 0.6% operating margin for the first half, with investment income lifting excess revenue to $997.9 million. Nichols is overseeing a number of projects aimed at sparking growth in the Chicago area. There’s the $645 million expansion and modernization of Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Lakeview, expected to be complete in 2030. In December, Advocate South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest is set to

open a $20 million inpatient behavioral health unit. Advocate is also building a $75 million, 60,000-square-foot outpatient center at the Webster Place shopping center in Lincoln Park, a type of facility Nichols says he intends to double down on. Patients often like outpatient centers for their streamlined primary or specialty care services and geographic convenience. Advocate likes outpatient facilities for the same reason, Nichols says, but there’s an additional financial upside in that they are usually cheaper to operate than hospitals. “Outpatient reimbursement is

Since the merger, Advocate has eliminated a number of duplicative corporate roles and closed the former headquarters in Downers Grove. The organization won’t say how many jobs were cut, but that, overall, the Illinois workforce has grown by about 2,400 people in the past 18 months, mainly in patient-facing and front-line roles. Nichols says no more layoffs are planned, while acknowledging some “internal angst” among Illinois employees about the headquarters move to Charlotte. “But, obviously, what we’ve learned is that the corporate location is just a location,” he says. “It’s not really impacting how we’re delivering care relative to boots on the ground. I believe we will absolutely have more than enough resources here to do what we need to do for these communities.” Even so, the distance will present new challenges as Nichols will have to compete for resources with regional leaders in other parts of the country and try to ensure senior executives are committed to growth in Illinois. “He has to convince somebody that this part of Illinois is more deserving of this particular investment than that part of North Carolina, for example,” Sanderson says. “And that’s no small feat.”

SMITH From Page 3

“We’ve done that, but I didn’t realize how much work it would be or how long it would take,” he says, while showing off most of the 22,000 square feet of buildings on the 4.2-acre estate. The main house has been “stabilized,” he says, from ripping down thickets of vines that shrouded and damaged its limestone walls to modernizing all the lighting and mechanicals. But “there are rooms I still haven’t touched,” Smith says, as he opens some wood drawers in a second-floor bathroom. “I don’t think I’ve looked at this room since we bought the place.” When Smith and his wife, Nancy, paid $2.75 million for the old Innisfail II estate on Green Bay Road in 2017, he told Crain’s, “This is the kind of house that makes Lake Forest fabulous, but it needs a lot of TLC now.” Now, Smith says, “I didn’t realize how bad it was.” He knew that in the 40-foot-long greenhouse, much of the glass was broken or gone and weed trees were growing out of cracks in the floor. He didn’t know there were more than 75 broken pipes inside the walls of the main house, a French-inflected mansion designed by David Adler in 1930 for a member of the Cudahy meatpacking family and his bride, who hailed from the Morton Salt family. Since 2017, the Smiths, their son, Jason Smith, and as many as 50 workers at a time have lavished TLC, craft work and money (they won’t specify how much) on the property, but the intention was never to make it their home. The Smiths have lived in western Lake Forest since 1987 and don’t plan to give up that house, he says. Buying this property, a visible eyesore near the heart of town, was more of a hobby project for the 79-year-old world-renowned architect.

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Sometimes swims Both Adrian and Nancy Smith have workspaces in the mansion. He has an office for his work at the Chicago firm where he’s a principal, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, and a large wood-paneled room where he displays models of his built and unbuilt works. Upstairs, he has a room to paint in. Nancy Smith also has a painting studio. Some days, Adrian Smith swims in the pool, which used to be completely choked by weeds. A painting teacher lives in a room in the mansion and has a studio where he teaches classes. A Lake Forest chef lives in the old chauffeur’s apartment over the attached garage. Nonprofits hold events in the buildings and on the vast lawn. When the rehab of a second, detached garage building is done, it will serve as gallery space. There’s no kitchen. Where it used to be are now tables for meetings and classes, but Adrian Smith says he has designed a kitchen and “can install it anytime if we decide that’s needed.” Although the look is mostly 1930s, there are some latter-day adaptations that

Since 2017, the Smiths, their son, Jason Smith, and as many as 50 workers at a time have lavished TLC, craft work and money (they won’t specify how much) on the property, but the intention was never to make it their home. I PHOTOS BY DENNIS RODKIN

have been preserved. Among them: a set of cabinet-mounted closed-circuit TVs from an antiquated security system, and an electric hand dryer mounted on the wall of a bathroom. “That must have seemed fancy once,” Smith says. Also preserved are many details of Adler’s design, including clay tile roofs, crown moldings with a different design in each room, wood paneling, a handsome staircase and tall windows. The family is now exploring routes to making the property some kind of nonprofit community arts center for the long term. “After all we’ve done, I want to make sure it stays this way and doesn’t go back to the way it was” in its run-down years, Adrian Smith says.

‘Labor of love’ Jason Smith, now a commercial real estate developer, says when he was a kid, his mom would drive

past the walled estate and they could see the crumbling roof. “We always wondered how a special place like that could get so bad,” he says. In 1930, Joseph and Jean Cudahy — who had lived in an earlier Adler design they called Innisfail, using a historical poetic name for Ireland — moved into the walled estate Adler designed for them on Green Bay Road and named it Innisfail II. With a main house, chauffeur’s cottage and garage, gardener’s cottage and greenhouse all connected, “it looked like a little village in France,” Smith says. After the Cudahys died, a member of another meatpacking family, the Armours, bought Innisfail II. The property later went to Clement Stone, the son of insurance magnate W. Clement Stone and head of an investment firm. Stone died in 1986 and his widow, Pamela, sold the property to Lincolnwood bank executive

Clyde Engle and his wife, Siobhan. Two decades later, Clyde Engle’s business collapsed because of bad construction loans and was hit with a $53 million court judgment. The Lake Forest estate, which was mingled with properties the bank owned, ended up in foreclosure. In limbo for more than a decade, it eventually was in such poor shape that a Lake Forest real estate agent — who wasn’t associated with the property — figured it was likely beyond hope for a homeowner, even an affluent one. “You’ll have to throw a few million at it to make it livable, and homeowners aren’t going to do that,” Mary Pat Lundgren, a Coldwell Banker agent in Lake Forest, said at the time. Smith declines to say how much the family has invested in the property on top of the $2.75 million purchase price. “It’s a labor of love,” he says. “We’re enjoying doing it.”

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