Results tagged “economy”

Home foreclosures in the Chicago suburbs and outer lying counties have risen sharply in the past three months, according to the Chicago Tribune. While home foreclosures within Cook County have decreased by five percent this financial quarter, "collar counties" like Will and Kane saw an increase in filings of at least 53% when compared to last year. The Woodstock Institute, a Chicago based economic research group, attributes the increase partly to the Illinois Homeowner Protection Act and the Home Affordable Modification Program.

• With property tax bills set to arrive in mailboxes over the next several days, it looks like they're going up by double-digits, even higher than previously expected.
• John Ambrose, a deputy U.S. Marshal accused of leaking information to mob members involved in the Family Secrets investigation, has been sentenced to four years in prison. When he was convicted in April, it was reportedly the first breach of the Witness Protection program.
• Former Chicago Bear Tank Johnson testified today in the murder trial of Michael Selvie, charged with shooting and killing Johnson's boyhood friend Willie Posey at the Ice Bar in December 2006.

On Sunday, The American Bankers Association begins a four day long convention that hopes to “rebuild our future, community by community.” The conference features a who’s who of financial celebrities including FDIC Chair Sheila C Blair along with conservative political columnist George Will and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. With plenty of power breakfasts, optional tours and fancy receptions, this year’s $1600+ convention is a must attend for anyone interested in hobnobbing with bailout beneficiaries.

Sugar Grove-based Chicago Industrial Fasteners LLC announced a new partnership with Spain's Matz-Erreka SCL to market and distribute large bolts and rods for wind turbines. The agreement, which will bring the high-strength bolts that are used to hold together and anchor wind turbines from Spain to the United States, is expected to help CIF expand its wind power parts business in the U.S. While CIF will import the parts initially, the plan is to shift production to Sugar Grove, creating “conservatively 10 to 20 jobs,” according to John Price, the firm's president. Figuring in both transportation costs and the exchange rate, “we can be a lot more competitive if we don’t have to ship it from Spain.”

With the Olympic announcement less than 24-hours away, we turned to a member of the staff who has experience living in an Olympic host city for a defense of the bid. Benjy is one of three Chicagoist staffers who lived in the Atlanta area during the 1996 Olympics and offers this pro-Olympics perspective.

Orchestra members of the Lyric Opera opened the season on Saturday with a performance of Puccini's "Tosca" without a contract, Chicago Breaking News reports.

• Mayor Daley has promised he'll look into reports that as many as one in five CPS teachers change grades.
• Cellist Phillip Blum, "the longest-serving member of the CSO," has passed away.
• WBEZ has an excellent report on the large amounts of money residents of the South Side spend outside of their communities each year and the lengths some are going to to change that trend.

There may be a little gleam of sunshine poking through the gloom of the current recession if the latest unemployment numbers are to be believed. While unemployment throughout the state inched up last month, based on numbers from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, the city of Chicago's July jobless rate actually dropped to 10.7 percent, down from 11.3 percent in June. Granted, that's like saying the flood waters just receded from 10 feet to 8 feet and it's still well ahead of the national average of 9.4 percent, but - hey - progress! Illinois is likely to be slower to see those numbers drop compared to the rest of the nation, according to IDES Director Maureen O’Donnell: “The country felt the pain of this recession many months before it was felt in Illinois, and it is likely that the same pattern will hold true as the economy recovers." [Crain's]

On Monday, loyal customers of the South Loop location of Sam’s Wines & Spirits learned that the location was due to close this upcoming Sunday, August 9. The store opened with much fanfare in 2007 and included a rooftop deck and a wine bar. The Chicago-based chain spent a significant amount of money renovating the 16,000 square foot former Trailways bus terminal it was located in. The exact reasons for the close are unknown, but emails from Sam’s indicated that general economic malaise, as well as the particular difficulties in the South Loop housing market, helped lead to the store’s demise.

The Chicago City Council approved a 25 year land lease to Exelon Corp. and SunPower Corp. yesterday, to build a 40 acre solar power plant on the polluted and vacant International Harvester plant, in Chicago's South side West Pullman neighborhood. The ordinance calls for a lease term of 25 years with an option to continue the lease for 25 more years after the initial lease term ends. The agreement stipulates that Exelon will pay the city $110,000 a year for the lease, and the city will assume $1.3 million of the environmental clean up costs. That includes asbestos-contaminated soil and removal of underground tanks. If other tanks are found, the city will split the costs with Exelon, although other environmental clean up costs will be assumed by the joint venture.

This morning, the Chicago City Council will vote on whether to grant a 25-year land lease to Excelon Corp., ComEd's parent company. The $60 million project, a joint venture of Exelon and San Jose-based SunPower Corp is expected to create 200 jobs directly from the construction of the plant, and the nearly 33,000 solar panels are expected to save over 14,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Excelon will own and operate the plant, and plans to market the Solar Renewable Energy Certificates it generates.

       

The Heartland Animal Shelter, a nonprofit, no-kill adoption service in Northbrook, has seen a surge in the number of abandoned pets over the last year, since owners are struggling to support them. According to The Northbrook Star:

At the end of this year, Chicago could be short 800 cops compared to last year the police union told the Sun-Times. The shortage is attributed to vacancies, attrition rates, and Mayor Daley’s 2009 budget which has significantly slowed down hiring. Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis told the Sun-Times last week that the CPD hopes to use federal grant money to hire 150 new officers this year. In the short term Weis will manage the officer shortage by shifting officers from desk jobs, or pay officers overtime with federal grants to cover the streets this summer.

In an effort to balance next year’s budget, the Art Institute of Chicago is laying off 22 staff members, accounting for 3% of their workforce. The cuts are being made across the board, and take effect immediately; employees were notified on Thursday.

33rd Ward Alderman Dick Mell announced late last Friday that Wal-Mart will get another shot at coming into Chicago, perhaps as early as by the end of this month. “We’ll see what the consensus is,” Mell who is chairman of the City Council's rules committee, said. Archon Group LP, the real estate firm that controls the South side retail center, has been ratcheting up pressure on the city, along with Wal-Mart, to allow the mega-retailer to develop a supercenter store at 83rd and Stewart. A clause in the development agreement of the Archon retail center prevents any store larger than 100,000 square feet from opening without prior approval by the city. Wal-Mart supercenters are typically 180,000 square feet, and sell groceries along with other retail goods.

Mars Inc. is closing five of its six Illinois Ethel's Chocolate locations by the end of the month. Fans of Mars's haute chocolate salon will have to travel to Skokie to get their fix. [Crain's]

While much of the country is celebrating March Madness, it's March sadness for members of the Illinois Institute of Technology's basketball players. IIT announced that it's dropping both its men's and women's intercollegiate basketball programs. Playing in the NAIA, the Scarlet Hawks were a part of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference and played against area schools like Robert Morris College and St. Xavier University. The school, known for its architecture and engineering programs was never mistaken for any kind of athletic powerhouse.

Anxious to close the $155 million budget gap they're facing, the CTA proposed several cost-cutting measures at their board meeting yesterday, including the possibility of a new fare hike.

The 11-point strategy focused mostly on internal savings such as cutting management and staff positions that would not affect bus or rail service or raise fares. The measures ranged from reducing management and office staff positions and overtime pay, to attempting to renegotiate contracts and sell off the CTA's vast real estate holdings.

Continue reading "CTA Hints at Another Fare Hike"

While the current tumultuous economic climate has several Major League Baseball teams planning to offer discounted concession items and value deals to fans in the 2009 season, the Cubs and Sox are not among those teams. Instead, it appears as if the pair of Chicago teams will keep their concession prices right at 2008 levels. The Cubs use Levy Restaurants for their concessions; team spokesman Peter Chase said, ''We always have an ongoing dialogue about different promotions and offers for fans, but at this time we don't have a new discount program in effect."

Heritage Community Bank was the third bank in Illinois to fail after being shut down by state and federal regulators on Friday. It is the second Chicago bank to go under so far this year. The FDIC announced that MB Financial was the winning bid and will purchase their assets.

Blaming the tanking real estate market and their bankruptcy-protection case, the Tribune Company has pulled the Tribune Tower off the market. Damn, and we almost had enough to make it the new Chicagoist HQ. The Trib Company had hired a broker to unload both the Tribune Tower and Times Mirror Square, the HQ for the LA Times, but with the economy spiraling further and further down the drain, the sales have been put on ice.

• Former FBI agent Vo Duong "Ben" Tran is now the main suspect in a 2002 North Side double homicide.
• Linda Pithyou, 29, a teacher at Lawrence Hall Services, has been accused of having sex with one of her teen students.
• John Morphey, the brother of Tom Morphey - the lone witness in the case of Stacy Peterson's disappearance - is speaking to the press on his brother's behalf and, guess what, he thinks Drew killed her.

Tonight, President Obama will address the nation in what is essentially a State of the Union speech. Sure to take centerstage is the economy. Of course, there are many out there (including us) who still have issues grasping some of the more complex parts of the current recession/depression/economic clusterf*ck. This nifty video, however, definitely helps explain the current credit crisis, however, and might be a good primer going into the President's speech tonight.

So now that President Obama has signed the controversial stimulus package, just how big will Illinois's piece of the pie be? The AP reports our take will be $1.58 billion, good enough for fifth place overall amongst the 50 states. Lawmakers now have to decide how that money will be spent. According to the AP, "The law also requires that half the money be spent on projects that have been vetted by the federal government and deemed "ready to go" in 120 days, as a way to jolt the economy and create jobs."

Times remain tough for the auto industry, with sales having fallen off a cliff due to a perfect storm of high gas prices, tight credit and the poor economy. But while we may be avoiding showrooms like the plague, we still want to check out the latest metal from Detroit and Munich -- especially if we can do so without packs of hungry salesmen nipping at our heels. While it's likely to be a less elaborate affair compared to years' past, the Chicago Auto Show must go on.

We've had a few hours to digest the hundreds of thousands of job-losses announced this morning, so now might be the perfect time to spring this on you: Wal-Mart would like to put as many as 5 new stores in Chicago. The Tribune is reporting that a new push is being put together to start out with a new store in the 21st ward, and take it from there.

The bad economy is being felt throughout society these days, and it's even hurting pro sports. The Arena League suspended their entire 2009 season. Sox GM Kenny Williams explained how the reduction in sponsorship revenue impacts his team's payroll at last weekend's SoxFest. The Chicago Bears are likely to feel that same pinch, but they won't be recouping that lost revenue from their fans.

While the U.S. Senate was debating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the bill that President Obama hopes will pump billions of dollars and thousands of jobs into the faltering economy, the White House released a study indicating that the bill could save or create 150,000 jobs over the next two years. According to Crain's Chicago Business, those estimates "are based on the overall goal that the plan will create or save 3 million to 4 million jobs nationally over the next two years." (You can check out per capita details of the House stimulus plan over at the Wall Street Journal's nifty "Who gets what" map.)

Illinois ranked ninth in the country for total number of foreclosed properties in 2008 -- at almost 100,000 -- but it’s not just homeowners who are suffering. A New York-based investment firm has only a few days left to pay off more than $48 million in loans on the building at 500 W. Monroe St., or it could be become the first Chicago skyscraper in a decade to face foreclosure, Crain’s Chicago Business reports.