Wicker Park Booster
June 13, 2007
By Mark Lawton

Hybrid cars will get priority parking at the Green Exchange, a combination mall and incubator for small, environmentally correct businesses.

There will be rooms for bicycles and showers for those who work up a sweat bicycling in to work. A car sharing service will be available. The paint and stain will be eco-friendly, the roof will have a garden and everything will be energy efficient.

Those are the plans for the former Frederick Cooper Lamp Company building at 2545 W. Diversey Ave., a 270,000 square foot building that was originally destined to be converted to condominiums.

More condos, however, were not what the community wanted when the company announced plans to close two years ago. Nor did Alderman Manuel Flores, 1st, who wondered what would happen to the 110 workers.

So the neighbors -- including the Logan Square Neighborhood Association -- got together with the alderman and talked about what they wanted. An environmentalist and owner of the Green Furniture Showroom, Barry Bursak, came up with concept of a green marketplace.

Meanwhile, the original developer sold to Baum Development, 1130 W. Chicago Ave., a company that wasn't afraid of taking a risk. It was started in 1989 by brothers David and Douglas Baum, who, just out of college, bought a two-flat to rehab with a loan co-signed by their mother.

The company had rehabilitated historic buildings, but a green building is something new.

"We have a triple bottom line," said David Baum. "People, plant and profit. To have a positive impact on the community and environment and to make a profit. We're certainly looking to make money that's not the end all, be all."

The project is unusual enough to have drawn attention from Business Week and Newsweek magazines as well as a host of local and specialty publications.

Space in the building is available only to tenants who supply environmentally appropriate services and products. There is room for about 100 tenants. So far, 25 percent of the space has been rented, said Baum.

Tenants so far include Consolidated Printing -- which uses recycled paper and soy-based inks -- Greenmaker Supplies -- which sells environmentally benign building materials and Current Energy, which consults on efficient energy use. The building is located in a city Enterprise Zone, which will offer tenants certain tax benefits.

A Tax Increment Finance District, or TIF, approved several months, includes the Green Exchange site. A TIF freezes property taxes at a chosen level. Taxes below that level continue to go to taxing bodies such as parks, schools and city services. Taxes above that level are put into a TIF fund that can be invested in infrastructure, private development or other items.

The project is a Planned Development, which means one-stop shopping with the city for the developer but also gives the city great control over the details of the project. The language of the Planned Development is being finalized, and Flores expects it to be completed in the next six weeks.

"I'm a big believer in the green economy, to be more competitive globally," said Flores. "This provides an opportunity to convert blue collar jobs to green collar jobs."