Glen Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District

The Glen TIF formally concluded on Dec. 31, 2021, marking the completion of a historic, award-winning redevelopment that has brought 5,500 residents, thousands of new jobs, and nearly 1.9 million square feet of retail, restaurant, hotel and office space to the Village of Glenview.

The closure of the TIF allowed area taxing districts to begin directly receiving property taxes generated from The Glen.

More information about the Glen TIF can be found here.

FAQ: All your questions answered about the Glen TIF

Brief history

In 1993, Congress made the decision to shut down the Glenview Naval Air Station, which had occupied 1,028 acres of land in the heart of the Village since 1937. As the base had been annexed into Glenview in 1971, the Village now “inherited” responsibility for this enormous, shuttered industrial complex. How to handle such a large redevelopment effort and ensure that it benefited Glenview as a whole?

After due consideration, the Village decided to act as the master developer of the site, now named “The Glen.” The stakes were just too high to parcel the land out to private developers with no input from the community and no way to balance land uses. After four and a half years of community-based planning and over 180 public meetings, the Board approved a Land Use Plan for The Glen in February 1998.

A key part of this plan was a financial strategy to ensure that base redevelopment, including demolition of over 300 acres of runways/taxiways and one million square feet of Navy buildings, could be paid for by using revenues generated from the base. Key parts of this strategy included land sales from approximately 650 acres of private-sector development and property taxes generated from this development and collected via a Tax Increment Finance, or TIF, district.

What's a TIF District?

It’s an economic redevelopment tool used by communities to spur investment in a particular geographic area. Here’s how it works:

A boundary is set around a particular group of properties.
Within those boundaries, the property tax values on the properties are “frozen,” that is, the tax revenue funneled to various local entities (schools, parks) remains at a specific level for no more than 23 years. · As the area begins to redevelop, property values rise — and so too do property taxes.
Any increment over the initial “frozen” valuation is retained by the Village government (instead of being paid out to those schools, parks and so on).
These funds are used to pay redevelopment costs.

How did the Village set up this TIF?

Most TIFs are used to help revitalize blighted urban areas. The Glen TIF is different. Village Trustees worked with State legislators to create it under an Illinois military base closure TIF law, “The Economic Development Project Area Tax Increment Allocation Act of 1995,” which labeled any military base closure in Illinois greater than 500 acres as being blighted and eligible for TIF dollars.

There was another problem with the regular TIF law. As the TIF district population grew, it placed increasing demands on local entities such as parks and schools. Yet these entities received no increase in property tax revenue to cover rising service costs. Concerned, Trustees successfully lobbied to include language in the new TIF law that allowed the Village to provide “make-whole” payments (a portion of the new property taxes) to these jurisdictions to cover these growing costs.

These payments are now made annually to six “core jurisdictions” that serve The Glen, including:

High School District 225
Village of Glenview
Glenview School District 34
Glenview Park District
Glenview Library
Northbrook/Glenview School District 30

What does the TIF pay for?

In addition to "make-whole" payments, TIF dollars have paid for a number of redevelopment costs, including:

Building out the infrastructure – for example, roads, sewers, sidewalks, Gallery Park, Lake Glenview and the Air Station Prairie.
Demolition of Air Station buildings and infrastructure.
Administration – paying the staff guiding the redevelopment effort, covering the overhead associated with all the work involved.
Providing incentives necessary to attract certain businesses.
Paying interest and making payments on bonds to help retire debt.

Glen TIF documents

Waukegan Road/Golf Road Tax Increment Financing District

The Waukegan Road / Golf Road Tax Increment Financing District (TIF) formally concluded on Dec. 31, 2023, marking the completion of a successful redevelopment of the former Avon site. The project brought significant improvements to this intersection, including the development of The Reserve, a 238-unit luxury apartment complex, and the Glen Gate Shopping Center (approximately 103,000 square feet of retail that includes a 75,000 square foot Mariano’s as the anchor tenant).

It was planned to close this TIF within 10 years -- no later than the end of 2023 -- following the last debt service payment due Dec. 1, 2023. The closure of the TIF in 2023 occurred significantly earlier than the allowed 23 years for a TIF to remain be open by statute.

The closure of this TIF allows area taxing districts to begin directly receiving the incremental property taxes generated from the Waukegan Road /Gold Road TIF.

Brief History

The Village Board of Trustees in April 2013 established an economic redevelopment tool that is facilitating the redevelopment of the former Avon Products property on the northeast corner of Waukegan and Golf roads.

Staff Report

The Village Board set up a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District, through which $3.5 million worth of infrastructure improvements could be accomplished. They included:

a new mid-block traffic signal for ingress and egress for the retail project;
major modifications to the existing signals at Waukegan and Golf roads and at the Waukegan Road and Overlook Drive intersection;
dual-left turn lanes for northbound and southbound Waukegan Road traffic at Golf Road; and
an additional southbound through-lane and new right-turn lane for southbound Waukegan Road traffic at Golf Road.

A TIF is used by communities to spur investment in a blighted area. The Avon distribution center had been vacant since 2010 without any viable prospects for reuse as an industrial facility. Together with a former auto dealership at 3 Waukegan Road that was also included in the TIF District, the property being redeveloped totals 21 acres.

The developer, Regency Centers, built a 75,000-square-foot Mariano’s grocery store, which opened in October 2014, and is building 15,400 square feet of in-line retail; a 239-unit, three-story residential apartment building; a drive-through bank; and two other retail buildings.

Through this TIF, property taxes generated by the rising value of the redeveloped property are being diverted from other taxing bodies – such as school district 34 and 219 and the Glenview Park District – to pay for the infrastructure improvements, as well as site demolition, land acquisition, legal, engineering and other project costs. The Village expects the TIF to be retired in either 2021 or 2023, depending on how fast the debt is repaid.

The proposed development project aligns with the Village’s redevelopment goals for the property. It is expected to yield about $500,000 in additional sales tax revenue annually and more than $1.1 million in new property taxes after the TIF expires.

A public hearing was held March 19, 2013.

The Village Board voted to establish the TIF April 2 and 16, 2013.

The Village of Glenview

Tax Increment Financing (TIF)