The other day I was passing Harlem and Talcott and noticed a landscaping company mowing the grass at the empty lot at the corner or Harlem and Talcott. There are a couple of other large empty lots on Harlem in between the Kennedy and Talcott. I would assume property on Harlem would have some value either for condos or commercially. Does anybody know who owns these lots and why they would pay taxes and money to mow for so many years?


This also brings to mind another empty lot in a gentrified neighborhood where all property has skyrocketed in value. Way back prior to the early 60s this was a location of a old gas station. In the early 60s the building and pumps were removed. My assumption is that they never removed the underground tanks and that it is cheaper to pay property taxes than the costs associated if the EPA made them dig up the tanks and remove the soil.

I assume back in the early 60s, nobody cared or paid attention to underground rusting tanks. Does anybody know what the current laws are? Does anybody regulate these types of property and how long would a property owner have to remove any underground tanks when a gas station closes?

Not doing anything with vacant lots is called "land banking". Property values generally go up. If they go up more than your taxes, they can beat out other low risk investments. This is why there are still parking lots in river north. The assessment on vacant land is pretty low and they are probably only paying a few thousand a year on both parcels.
The other problem is that the property is zoned very low (RS1). They could only put 2 or possibly 3 single family homes on that land. I don't think that they are up for million dollar McMansions in that neighborhood.

The tanks are probably removed. They started searching them out back in the 70's and I think they have gotten most of the old ones. It gets paid for out of your motor fuel tax plus an owners deductable.

Kchi,

Could this be pertinent to your question?

Norwood Park Historical Society

http://www.norwoodparkhistoricalsociety.org/history/landmark.html



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2013 04:54PM by nordsider.

nordsider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kchi,
>
> Could this be pertinent to your question?
>
> Norwood Park Historical Society
>
> http://www.norwoodparkhistoricalsociety.org/histor
> y/landmark.html

That is just a national register designation. There are no restrictions. It's more like a club.
You can apply for preservation incentives on your property taxes, but if you don't, you can tear down whatever you want and build whatever anyone else in the city can, on a similar lot.

I'm pretty sure that land is owned by the Catholic Church. I have relatives that live near there and I remember them saying when they moved to that neighborhood (in the mid 60s) that the Church owned almost all the property in that area at one time, and used most of it for Resurrection Hospital. Next time try asking the landscaper "nice job, who pays you and can I ask them for a recommendation to submit to my company so we can hire you too?". That should work.

I checked. They are currently owned by Demichele Properties in Palatine.
They bought it from a trust in 2010. Before that, there were a few different owners since '87 when the online history starts
They are currently mortgaged for a little over a million, they mortgaged them in 2012.

I've always wondered why those prime corners at Harlem and Bryn Mawr were vacant.

Checked Historic Aerials and they have been vacant since the 1930s. I used to think because of the X-way that they were so.

tomcat630 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've always wondered why those prime corners at
> Harlem and Bryn Mawr were vacant.
>
> Checked Historic Aerials and they have been vacant
> since the 1930s. I used to think because of the
> X-way that they were so.


A big chunk of that was owned by IDOT. But they sold it to .... Demichele Properties in Palatine. They hold a bunch of properties on both sides if Harlem. All bought in 2010.

It sounds like someone is playing monopoly