Here is something that might shed insight as to why this facility sits unused. It’s something I want to discuss on my blog when I have time to really blog again, which is not now.

But here goes.

A few years back (2002? 2003?) a local Asian business owner of my acquaintance attended a 48th Ward meeting at which Alderman Mary Ann Smith spoke, regarding this property, which was fully functioning as a funeral home at the time.

At this meeting, Ms. Smith discussed this place, and the type of businesses she wanted in the ward, and her intention to force this place to close. She said that the concern was no longer locally owned, and that she did not want “that type of business” in her ward.

My acquaintance was furious that A. a local politician could will a privately owned business that had resided there for decades to leave the area, even though they owned their property, and were not in any manner a nuisance, but a highly respectable business paying large amounts of taxes, and B. that she would even want to lose yet another fine business that contributed to the tax rolls when the city has lost most of its manufacturing and much other business in the past 30 years.

Well, I don’t know if it was by Ms. Smith’s devices that this business finally vacated this facility. Weiss still does have another funeral home on Devon Ave, and perhaps they can tell us.

But I notice that not only is this building vacant, so is the fine old mixed use building on the corner, that used to house a carpet store, and had apartments overhead. It sits vacant and boarded up. And across the street, are vacant lots and a tatty strip mall. I notice that a CVS is opening in the building formerly occupied by DelRay Farms.

At this moment, the entire block occupied by the Weiss property is desolate and seedy, and badly in need of good development, which is not likely to happen in this market climate. I’m not sure how much responsibility Ms. Smith has for vacating this block, but I have heard that she wants to make Edgewater more “walkable”, which means furnished with fine-grained retail that attracts shoppers and walkers, with the minimum of curb cuts and parking lots and drive- through facilities.

Now, this is a laudable goal. However, removing existing businesses by force is not exactly the way to achieve this, especially when we are in a climate where those businesses are not likely to be replaced.

Overall, Ms. Smith has done a wonderful job of ridding the 48th of crime and blight. Overall, she’s a fine alderman, and I’d support her again.

However, she tends to tyrannize local businesses, and needs to be reminded that these are her constituents, not her subjects. While the community is totally justified in closing a business that is a bonafide nuisance, there is no other reason to bother a concern that not only is not a nuisance or danger, but is contributing taxes and jobs, and, most important of all, is someone’s private property and livelihood.

But of course….. our future tax dollars are financing MORE chain stores and more parking lots.. how appropriate for a dense urban area!! It sounds like that entire block will be devoted to auto-centric development- a lost block. The CVS store, I believe, is now open.

Wasn't there a Broadway-Berwyn TIF a number of years back, for the two shopping plazas that sit catty-corner from each other at Berwyn and Broadway?

The entire city is becoming one massive TIF district, to the point where you have to wonder from whence will come the future revenues necessary to keep essential services, such as police and fire protection, as well as essential road and sewer infrastructure, adequate to our needs against rising costs in coming years>

Do our leaders see the connection between the mounting number and size of TIF districts, on one hand; and the increasing difficulty of meeting the needs of our essential services and providing them with adequate funding, on the other?