Scaled Back Chicago Post Office Redevelopment Announcement Coming In June

Joseph Antunovich, architect for British developer Bill Davies, said during a May 3 fire safety meeting with City of Chicago officials that this coming June he expects his client to release a scaled back version of plans for redevelopment of Chicago's old main Post Office building straddling the Eisenhower Expressway at the Chicago River. A massive redevelopment plan released in 2011 called for construction of five residential, hotel and office towers on the site. That proposal has proved not to be economically viable.

The forthcoming, more modest plan will include retail shops on the bottom three floors of the existing  nine story structure, with residential space above. Davies also plans a 100 story hotel and residential tower on the portion of the site between the existing structure and the riverbank, atop Amtrak and commuter rail yards at the water's edge. Davies will also propose a parking garage just west of the old Post Office building, containing robotic car elevators designed to bring each driver's vehicle back to the exit lanes.

The announcement of the forthcoming design release came during a meeting with CFD officials to discuss improved sprinkler standpipes within the existing building and the 24 hour per day operation of the building's 11 exhaust fans to clear away diesel exhaust fumes from idling Amtrak and METRA commuter locomotives using Chicago Union Station's train sheds and rail yards.

Old Main Chicago Post Office Sold To Troubled UK Developer

Hopes for a quick and easy redevelopment of the old Chicago Main Post Office building, which has been sitting empty astride the Eisenhower Expressway for many years now, were dashed when second ward Alderman Robert Fioretti outed English real estate developer Bill Davies as the successful anonymous $40 million bidder at the Postal Service auction of the building last month. Davies has a checkered history of troubled and failed developments in the UK, including the purchase of the abandoned Liverpool post office building, which he resold 16 years later without doing a stitch of work on the structure. Flo Clucas, deputy city council leader in Liverpool, describes Davies as "long winded and desperately difficult."

U. S. Postal Service spokesman Mark Reynolds posted the required $4 million deposit, and USPS hopes to close the sale and get the property off its books before the September 30 fiscal year end. The empty building needs extensive repairs, and annual maintenance runs about $2 million per year. Alderman Fioretti acknowledges significant asbestos abatement will be part of any renovation for private use, and predicts redevelopment costs will run between $750 million and $1 billion. Davies, listed by the Times of London as one of England's richest people, probably has the cash and credit power to get the job done, it's just a question whether he has the will to spend all that money here. Contractors, sharpen your pencils!

Obama Signs '09 Omnibus Appropriations

Disdaining the usual public signing ceremony associated with putting the President's name to significant legislation, President Obama signed the '09 omnibus appropriation bill sent to him by the Senate last night, complete with all 8,330 attached earmarks. While his statement to the press expressed once again his determination to alter the process of earmarking funding for legislators' pet projects, he acknowledged that under current circumstances he would accept the bill as is in order to keep the federal government functioning and addressing the serious problems the country faces.

The money spent by this bill will not show up on the Recovery.gov website, though construction projects funded by the bill will appear on the FedBizOpps.gov website. If you are looking for projects in your neighborhood, the text of the bill itself, including all the earmark letters, can be found here:

http://appropriations.house.gov/FY2009_consolidated.shtml

The earmark letters are attached in alphabetical order of the legislator's last name. Scroll through until you come to your Senators or Congressman, and you will find the group of earmarked projects designated for your locality.

Navigating Recovery.gov

The federal government's recovery.gov website is actually becoming functional for those who want a centralized, sort of searchable site for seeking out projects to bid on. Here's how to do it:

Open the Recovery.gov home page by typing Recovery.gov into your Google search box. When the home page opens you will see a block on the lower right portion of the page headed "State Progress and Resources." Click on that block. Doing this will open a page which has one blue link "Agency Recovery Sites," which will open a list of federal government agencies that already have their own sites listing projects they are building. The same page has a U. S. map. If your state is colored blue on the map, clicking on your state will take you directly to your state's own web site for Recovery Act projects. If your state is still tan, your state site is not yet up and running. I suggest checking back daily to see when it goes up, so you don't miss out on any of the bidding.

Along similar lines, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee just reported out a bill which would require establishment of a single federal website for announcing, applying for and processing all federal government grants. They are trying to eliminate all paper from the process and to put everything on line.

Monday Senators will have a chance to offer amendments to the omnibus appropriation bill passed this week by the House for fiscal 2009, which must be completed by March 6 or the government will run out of cash. Look for a conference committee to be convened mid week after the Senate markup. However, nobody expects the Senate to eliminate any of the 8,330 earmarks costing an estimated $7.7 billion from the legislation.

Finally, if you are in the D.C. area, protest marches expected Monday may spur the federal government to fund a project for converting all of the boilers in the D.C. power generating plant from coal to natural gas. This will provide a lot of jobs to local contractors and tradespeople.

Please use this information to help your construction business participate in the government funded recovery of the economy of our industry.

Have You Ever Seen An Earmark?

There has been a lot of talk during the presidential campaigns, and since the inauguration of President Obama, about Congressional earmarks in appropriations legislation. Have you ever seen an earmark? If not, click on this link to the House Appropriations Committee home page and you can see 9,000 of them:

http://appropriations.house.gov/FY2009_consolidated.shtml

The link will take you to a listing of the various portions of the $410 billion omnibus appropriation bill pending in the House of Representatives for fiscal year 2009. Congress has to pass this bill before the end of March to avoid a government shutdown. After each section of the bill you will see a line that looks like this:

Summary : Bill : Statement : Certification Letters

Click on "Certification Letters." These letters are the "earmarks" everyone has been talking about. They are requests by individual Senators and Representatives that money be set aside out of the appropriations for specific projects. Note well that the letters do not specify how much is being requested in the earmark.

If you are looking for specific projects in your locality to bid on, scroll through the 9,000 earmarks in this bill and find the letterhead of your own Senators or Congressman, and the letter will identify the project money is being earmarked for.

Happy Hunting!

Obama Promises Searchable Stimulus Project Database

Stimulus Package Breakdown To Become Public

In his initial meetings with Congressional leadership January 5, president elect Obama promised his transition team will post the details of his proposed stimulus spending program on the internet, in a searchable format which will enable people to identify specific projects within their Congressional districts to be paid for with the stimulus appropriations. We won't know how well this really works until we see it, and no date was announced when it will be available.

We will keep everyone advised of this development, as searching districts near your location will be the fastest way to find out ahead of time which projects will be relased for you to bid on in the near future. I only hope the transition team is as good as its word on this one!