Flaherty Fiscal Flounderings. Orland Park variety. Best headline from there so far, "Should village ‘act as a bank’, Gorman asks at meeting on luxury apartment project"

Why not?   Suits me just fine.

Flaherty, pictured above, giving a hand-waving Orland Park presentation on why municipalities bankrolling his adventures is peachy and reassuring and how it may best be. He did the same hand-waving thing in Ramsey, (with the Coburn guy at the same HRA work session saying, in essence, "Back Flaherty"). The photo crops off at his right hand, not showing the uber-expensive looking wrist watch he waved around while in Ramsey. It caught my eye. Yes, dress for success is great but I'd have been more impressed if he had hocked the watch and put the proceeds into his Ramsey adventure, thus showing a personal trust in his own big-time risk offering.

Headline from here. Photo from here.

At both Orland Park and Ramsey, he performed his act without a dog. Without a pony. However, look at the Orland Park crowd, use your skills at body language, and decide whether animal props might have helped:

Not selling the product, Dave. Is it the pitch, or the product at fault? Some say a good product sells itself. Finance my profit-seeking private sector risk with town cash, that's not much of a product to sell itself, is it, except to village idiots (and on-commission consultants)?

The two stories presently online concerning Flaherty Fiscal affairs in Orland Park which were not already linked to in earlier Crabgrass posts, are here and here.

The first story (source of the photos) shows those Orland Park politicians already have spent a bundle on their Ramsey Town Center analog, to such an extent it makes the wasteful purchase from foreclosure by Ramsey of the distressed Town Center land smell like roses. Comparatively. But only comparatively. In each instance opening profligate town politicians' spending was a prelude to much worse, more of the same.

The second new reporting item begins:

After a couple of weeks of listening to some negative reaction from the public, the Village of Orland Park board of trustees will vote Monday on loaning developers of the Ninety 7 Fifty On The Park luxury apartment complex $62 million of the $63 million project.

This complex is part of the Main Street Downtown Orland Park project that already had some residents upset because it caused the closing of some popular businesses in the soon-to-be-torn down Orland Plaza.

This vote was originally going to take place at the Sept. 6 meeting but the village held an informational open house Aug. 29, where and several angry residents bombarded Mayor Dan McLaughlin with questions and criticisms. He delayed the vote and allowed citizens to speak at the Sept. 6 meeting, where many took issue with the project.

The main concern is that the village is funding too much of this project while Indianpolis-based builder Flaherty & Collins is putting up $1 million plus another $1 in fees. In August, Village Manager Paul Grimes said this shouldn’t have an impact on taxpayers.

“We’ve put belts and suspenders around this deal, and there is no reason to believe this is going to impact the property tax bills or result in any sort of increase in taxes,” Grimes said at an Aug. 17 news conference.

That "belts and suspenders" Grimes guy could have interesting conversations with Colin "I don't see how it can fail" McGlone about which of various rose-colored glasses may be better than others to use when viewing a Flaherty "bankroll me" rental-ramp-wrap mega-deal pitch and reviewing the paperwork.

Read the remainder of the online item, to see there is at least one Orland Park politician with concerns - those concerns being much like the libertarian thoughts Councilmember Jason Tossey has expressed in Ramsey --- that if the guy spends Flaherty-Collins' and real bank cash, instead of wanting to turn towns into banking outlets for the Flaherty firm, than let the project proceed and don't stand in the way.

However, Tossey has heard the trains and hence has reservations.

Tossey expanded his concern in email arising from his correcting an error I made in a previous post, where I said he was the only council member living in shared-wall housing and he indicated that was so when his family first moved to Ramsey but that they now live in a detached home "within the COR" and have kept the shared-wall home for now as a rental because of the market decline making a present recapture of invested equity in today's market unlikely.

In making the correction, his email continued:

Just this weekend, my neighbor and I were sitting outside enjoying a nice bonfire when a train came through blasting its horn for about 3 minutes in 20 second intervals. My first thought was about those enjoying a taco on the Acapulco deck, my second thought was about the soon to be residents of the Residence who will have to suffer through the blasts until Armstrong is re-done. Furthermore, even though I'm nearly half a mile away, I could feel the ground shake. That is why the recent article regarding the construction issue in Illinois concerned me so.

As you indicate in your blog, I am not opposed to the project, just the financing. But if the city is going to have financial stake (disregarding my objections) then it is imperative that the construction of this facility is top notch. And in light of the recent Illinois article, I now have a few doubts about the quality along with serious doubts about the financing.

The Orland Park area article about complaints in another part of the Chicago metro area of shoddy Flaherty-Collins construction practices remains online, here. It was mentioned and quoted at length in an earlier Crabgrass post, here.

History speaks for itself, with all crabgrass readers urged to again have a serious look at the "Echelon of Matteson" sorry saga.


Combustible wood frame construction. Beyond that, with regard to the arson fire that unfortunately required the Flaherty firm to reconstruct the almost-completed downtown Indianapolis Cosmopolitan project, a website in that city had documented the extensive use of wood framing above ground level, with speculation on another site that the fire damage might have been greater than otherwise because of that.

This link, for during-construction photos of the pre-arson Cosmopolitan, and here  for links to the speculative commentary, which remains online here, and here. Consider these images, same Cosmopolitan corner perspective, but built out to look as if more than wood-frame construction atop less combustible ground floor retail.

photo from here

Tossey is right that building quality standards should be enforced (I would go one step further and say that is required whether or not the city pops multi-million dollar taxpayer-banking for Mr. David Flaherty and his firm). We are stuck with the project, whether as soundly built as possible, or less so.

We need to have substantial quality, not claptrap nor a fire trap.

If it is to be done to our community, it should be done safely, from a fire threat viewpoint; and it should, if possible, be built to screen out or at least minimize as far as feasible the directly adjacent high noise levels and the vibrational impacts of the steady day-and-night BNSF freight train track usage, without any corner cutting as was reported as complained of in the Chicago area condo project which led to the somewhat awkward-in-context Flaherty PR disaster of an excuse line, "We're Apartment Guys."

Cosmopolitan - this link.

That "Apartment Guys" line will not cut it, if the thing is built with corner-cutting hiding of rail impact inhospitability of a kind that will lead to high tenant turnover rates, sublease upon sublease, and to a more desparate and less affluently mobile clientele for the place. Phrased directly, if done at all, stand on them with spurs on ready to jump and kick as soon as any compromise of quality is seen, and do so throughout the construction phase since it will be Ramsey, more than Flaherty and Collins that will be stuck with the thing.

As Flaherty's firm showed, in one of their North Carolina bankruptcies they found a buy-out party, and they currently are marketing, (or recently have been marketing), a full buy-out or a buy-out position on their flagship product, the Cosmopolitan on the Canal. That they are contemplating bailing out on a long term position there, in prosperous and busy downtown Indianapolis (adjacent to a quiet charming urban-renewal canal and walking path, not the busiest freight line, night-and-day, in the state), indicates they know how to walk and are not hesitant to do so, via bankruptcy court, or otherwise.

Again history can repeat itself. And in terms of fire safety next to the taxpayer owned ramp, TV coverage from the time of the Cosmopolitan arson fire, or earlier, was reported as:

A state commission granted the developers of the Cosmopolitan on the Canal a code variance, which gave them permission to not follow the current building code for buildings that size.

Documents show the developers of the Cosmopolitan asked for a variance from the state that allowed them to classify the building as four stories rather than five. It was granted, which allowed the building to be framed with wood instead of metal and concrete.

Why ask for that variance? Because, according to an Indianapolis Code Consultant, state code allows builders to use wood framing on buildings that are four stories tall, but not five.

"Basically, the code limits the number of stories and floor area based on the type of materials you use. For example, for combustible materials, wood, there's a limitation on how many stories you can build and how big the floor area can be. Once you're up to five stories, generally you're up to non-combustible construction. Wood framing would not be allowed," said Ralph Gerdes, Code Consultant.

Much of the Cosmopolitan built on a slope along the canal is four stories. But, because a small portion is five stories, the developer had to ask for a variance in order to use the highly combustible wood framing.

BOTTOM LINE: Again, if the thing is built at all, with much Ramsey citizen sentiment against it, building code officials and Brian Olson and his people should stand on Flaherty with spurs on, ready to jump and kick at the first sign of anything but the quality and safety in construction that Flaherty has made a living of touting.