Property tax incentives approved today by City Council will support a pair of commercial redevelopment projects on the Near North and Northwest sides.

West Town Center
A Class L property tax incentive will support the $17 million rehabilitation of a historic commercial building at 1275-95 N. Milwaukee Ave. in the West Town community.

AGC West Town Center Owner LLC, which purchased the 80,000-square-foot building in 2011, will use the Class L incentive to help rehabilitate the interior and exterior. The Class L incentive, which encourages the preservation and rehabilitation of landmark structures, will reduce property taxes on the building by $1.8 million over the next 12 years.

Located in the Milwaukee Avenue Landmark District, the building originally opened as a Wieboldt’s department store in 1897.

Kingsbury Center
A Class C property tax incentive will support the cleanup of a contaminated industrial site at 1415 N. Kingsbury St. on the Near North Side.

Completed two years ago at a cost of $780,000, the clean-up work involved the removal of underground storage tanks that had contaminated the property in the mid-1900s. Their removal enabled Kingsbury Center SPE LLC to construct a 60,000-square-foot, $20 million retail plaza on the site in 2012. The plaza is today occupied by four stores and employs 200 people.

The Class C incentive encourages the cleanup of contaminated industrial, commercial or vacant sites by lowering the assessment rate for 12 years. Total tax savings over period is estimated at $2.9 million.

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