Dean Olsen
The Illinois Times
The Springfield City Council may reconsider its Feb. 21 vote granting Horace Mann Educators Corp. $600,000 in tax-increment financing revenues to demolish two downtown buildings and create a parking lot and green space in the 600 block of East Washington Street.
Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley said she will ask the council at its March 7 meeting to reconsider the 7-2 vote. If the council agrees to do so, another debate and vote on the proposal to use TIF funds for the project will take place.
Conley said she cast a “reluctant yes” vote for the expenditure on Feb. 21. But she said at the council’s Feb. 28 committee-of-the-whole meeting that Horace Mann mistakenly told the council the previous week the two buildings in question – at 618 and 622 East Washington St. – were not part of the Central Springfield National Register Historic District.
In fact, both buildings were part of 89 properties added to the downtown district in a 2015 application to the federal government that was later approved.
Anthony Schuering, a Brown Hay & Stephens attorney representing Horace Mann, apologized for the oversight and said Horace Mann wasn’t trying to deceive the council.
Conley told Schuering she believed him. Conley faulted city staff overseen by Mayor Jim Langfelder for failing to thoroughly evaluate Horace Mann’s plans.
It’s unclear whether another vote on the TIF project would result in a reversal. Ward 5 Ald. Lakeisha Purchase, in whose ward the properties sit, said, “I don’t hear any solutions coming forward.”
After a Feb. 16 story in Illinois Times about the project receiving preliminary support from the council on Feb. 14, Landmarks Illinois, a Chicago-based nonprofit historic preservation advocacy group, sent a letter to Langfelder and the 10 alderpersons that said using TIF funds for the project would violate state law.
The project’s TIF money, generated by incremental increases in property taxes in the Central Area TIF District, can’t be used to demolish or substantially modify a “historic resource” unless “no prudent and feasible resource exists,” according to the Landmarks Illinois letter.
Horace Mann has declined Langfelder’s request to pay any legal costs if the city were sued by someone citing the law.
Schuering said the buildings, which have been vacant for more than 10 years, are deteriorating – with holes in roofs and floors, and have mold and asbestos that would need to be removed. Even with the new information about the buildings’ status, Horace Mann wants to proceed with the project, Schuering said.
Schuering is president of the executive board for Downtown Springfield Inc., a downtown business association that issued a letter of support for the Horace Mann project. When he learned Horace Mann was seeking DSI’s support, Schuering said he wrote a letter to the board “identifying the existence of a potential conflict and recusing myself from the deliberations.”
Schuering said he didn’t participate in any of DSI’s discussion on the issue, and abstained from the board’s vote. During discussion of the issue at a board meeting, he “answered specific questions” about the state law governing TIFs “but never advocated for or against issuing the letter of support. … I’ve also never asked any board member, publicly or privately, to support the request.”
The proposed $1.9 million remediation and demolition, which Horace Mann characterized as a “beautification project” rather than a parking project, would make way for green space and more than 20 parking spaces immediately west of the Horace Mann-owned, three-story Witmer-Schuck building at 628 E. Washington St.
The parking spaces would be used by residents of the Witmer-Schuck building, some would be leased to other downtown businesses, and the spots would be available for free parking during nights and weekends, Horace Mann officials said.
Schuering said Horace Mann, a publicly traded company with its main campus immediately northeast of the building, has spent about $2 million to renovate the 1860s-era structure for a Horace Mann-affiliated insurance agency and for furnished apartments that will be used by visiting corporate executives and newly hired employees.
Horace Mann already paid $80,000 to acquire 622 E. Washington in 2022. The TIF funds would be used for the purchase of 618 E. Washington, currently owned by Y&M Holdings LLC, and for demolition and redevelopment at the two-property site.
Regardless of whether the City Council reverses itself and denies TIF funding for the project, council members later could act to halt demolition of the buildings because of their historical significance, according to Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin.
McMenamin and DiCenso were the two ward representatives voting against the TIF proposal Feb. 21; Ward 4 Ald. John Fulgenzi was absent from that council meeting.
McMenamin said there may be a “feasible alternative to demolition” because state and federal tax credits are available to developers in the historic district.
The Downtown Heritage Foundation opposes the project, saying in a statement that “demolition of historic buildings in downtown Springfield for any reason, especially to create surface parking, is wrong and sends the message that Springfield has little regard for the city’s unique fingerprint in American history.”
The foundation’s statement said the original upper-story facades of the buildings at 618, 622, 624 and 626 East Washington “remain intact behind the later ‘modern’ facade additions and can be restored.
“Downtown Springfield is currently littered with surface lots which deteriorate the historic connected urban streetscape,” the statement said. The foundation said it wants to work with city officials, Horace Mann and local developers “to explore long-term adaptive reuse strategies.”
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 