September 29, 2012 9:00 pm • Chelsea Schneider Kirk
chelsea.schneider@nwi.com, (219) 933-3241
HAMMOND | An Illinois-based real estate development firm has placed an offer to purchase the Harris Bank building in downtown Hammond.
Three Corners LLC, of Orland Park, Ill., is planning $5 million in renovations to the building at 5243 Hohman Ave.
“The reason the city is interested is it's new jobs for Hammond, new investment in Hammond,†said Phil Taillon, Hammond Department of Planning and Development executive director. “We got a building vacant for quite a while that's going to become useful again.â€
The company plans to reposition the building for education-based development and office space, said Christopher Woods, Three Corners LLC president.
A quick-serve restaurant or coffee shop with outdoor seating also are in the works for the ground floor of the building.
Plans call for the development to house multiple tenants with one likely tenant being Madison Coatings. Woods said the company is a division of Madison Construction, also of Orland Park, Ill., and would bring approximately 40 jobs to downtown.
Three Corners LLC was the sole bidder at $369,250 to buy the city-owned building. The company offered the minimum bid set by the city for the building's purchase, Taillon said.
The Hammond Redevelopment Commission opened the bid at its Sept. 18 meeting.
Taillon said negotiations will begin with the company, and the city may float incentives to help pay for the renovations. Any incentives given to the company likely will come from a tax-increment financing district created to facilitate development in the city's downtown, Taillon said.
"We're bringing over a very well-established company from Illinois to Indiana," Taillon said. "This is what we've been talking about."[/quote]
December 2014... has the Harris building been rehabbed? Are those tenants in? And what ever happened to that reported coffee shop partnership?
91097
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The house on Hoffman has been torn down, after $74,000 reportedly was put into it with our tax dollars. I figure the demo was about another $12,000-$15,000. So, we are looking at a total of approximately $90,000 wasted. That money could have been used to repair the previously mentioned home of the elderly lady, to give her a decent place to live, and still have plenty of money left over to help several other Hammond homeowners who are in a pickle because of age or medical issues. What a waste !
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Now Tiger, you know this is really Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr's Urban Development program under his lead. Friends, family and contractors give contributions to him, and then they are awarded contracts like this.
A visitor to under the Hohman avenue campfire said, funny thing, electrical work was done on this property, and then apparently someone a year or so later filed for a permit. Face value... unsubstantiated fiction... or is it?[/quote]
It seems to be another "let's make a deal", at the taxpayers expense.