Harvey Mayor Nickolas Graves sees a bright future for his city, but finding the right formula to transform decaying neighborhoods and attract new residents and business is proving elusive as one project after another starts, then sputters.
The latest casualty is DePaul University’s proposed educational center, which school officials said will not be coming to the distressed area as planned.
But Graves, a two-term mayor and lifelong resident of the city, is undeterred. He is still banking on a proposed casino and help from the newly elected 15th District senator, James Meeks, to make that rebirth come true.
DePaul had planned to open the center, which was to teach technical skills, at the former Atlantic-Richfield Co. research facility, 400 E. 147th St. The project hit a stumbling block when federal inspectors found asbestos falling from pipes inside the main building.
DePaul officials said they would not renew their option to buy the land and had withdrawn the proposal.
Graves’ vow to rebuild Harvey may hinge on whether Meeks can deliver on his campaign promises to rescue the city and the rest of his ailing district.
Meeks’ top concerns for the area are assisting schools and increasing jobs, he said. He plans to donate half his Senate salary to fund scholarships for Thornton Township High School students because not enough Harvey high school graduates continue their education, he said.
He said he wants to join Graves’ efforts to attract residential developers and financial institutions.
That effort recently received an $8 million shot in the arm, in the form of a federal grant to build affordable housing for the elderly. But the grant is only a drop in the bucket for a city with an 11.1 percent unemployment rate and a 10.9 percent dropout rate at Thornton Township High School, along with high teen pregnancy figures and a stagnant tax base.
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Housing developers, too, have run into roadblocks.
After a hopeful start, the Apollo Pointe subdivision, off Interstate Highway 57 on Dixie Highway, folded this year. The subdivision, which was selling houses for $150,000 to $250,000, was designed to draw more affluent buyers.
Developer Gerald Ruzich, president of Regson Development Inc., said a lack of comparable new properties to compute property taxes in Harvey scared off the project’s lender.
“They pushed me into foreclosure,” Ruzich said, and potential buyers were driven elsewhere.
But Brenda Thompson, director of Harvey’s Building and Planning Department, blamed the developer, saying he should have done his homework: “He had a vision and a dream that was beautiful. It just was not the time and place for it.”
Even so, several homes throughout the city are slowly being rehabbed, and vacant lots are given to developers who are expected to build affordable housing there, officials said.
And Thompson and Graves said they are working on alternatives to the federal government’s Section 8 housing assistance for low-income buyers.
A home buyers’ program has been developed in which HUD homes are bought by the city and rehabbed, then sold at affordable prices to qualified buyers who have attended classes on homeownership and have secured mortgages.
The perfect solution to make the city and its sister suburbs prosperous, some observers said, could involve a third regional airport and the still up-for-grabs 10th casino license.
Graves said he supports the casino plan, but his slow-and-steady approach focuses on rebuilding his city block by block if needed, starting with the removal of decaying housing.
But that strategy is somewhat at odds with the more powerful political voice of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), a Graves ally who contends it will take a more grandiose plan to reverse the fortunes of Harvey and its neighbors.
He argues that a new airport in Peotone is the best way to bring about dramatic change in towns like Harvey, Dixmoor, Markham and Dolton, saying the area could become comparable to the lucrative O’Hare International Airport corridor.
“There are 60 people for every one job south of the Museum of Science and Industry all the way to the Cook County line. There are three jobs for every one person on the North Side near O’Hare,” Jackson said.
Graves is hedging his bets, pinning some hopes on a proposed south suburban casino. Although Harvey is part of a consortium of eight south and southwest Cook County suburbs working to secure the casino license and share its revenue, Graves wants the facility built in Harvey.