The owner could not develop it and was glad to get it off his tax bill. The city is doing similar things with three other properties it owns in downtown, Fisher said. Keeping the old buildings in place rather than tearing them down for new construction is what will allow the city to keep a unique character, and not just become another Chicago suburb, Fisher said. Although the city's growth is focused in the new subdivisions to the west, he said, its heart remains downtown. If you can mothball the buildings and wait for the market to be right, which I think it is now, you're going to have another asset that will last another 80 to 90 years.
Fisher works with developers to put together an incentive package.
It belongs, it really belongs. Hugunin said he bought the Klines building because of a famous Chicago architect designed it. But it needed to do something. For Fisher, a Joliet native who remembers shopping at Klines as a kid, keeping the buildings is also a matter of pride. They just don't.