Joliet Now Owns Evergreen Terrace

The City of Joliet now owns the Evergreen Terrace housing complex after winning a 12-year legal battle. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development informed city officials of the news on Wednesday, September 27 and Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk confirmed it to the public the day after.

“It’s been a long process,” O’Dekirk said in an interview with the Herald-News website. “It’s good we’re able to finally move forward. It’s been a couple years since we paid for it.”

Joliet paid $15 million in August of 2015 for Evergreen Terrace after winning a 10-year condemnation case to take control of the housing complex from its private owners. The $15 million price was set by a federal grand jury.

The former owners appealed the ruling and petitioned that constitutional questions remained to be settled about the effect of city ownership on housing availability for low-income African Americans, but a federal appeals court ruled in Joliet’s favor in June 2016. The former owners were unsuccessful in their attempts to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to the Herald-News website, Inspector General Chris Regis said in October 2016 that Evergreen Terrace owners were “doing everything they can to delay [Joliet’s] possession of it because they’re making money from it. How much we don’t know, because they won’t tell us.”

O’Dekirk said the next steps are to evaluate the condition of the buildings and for the council to come up with a game plan on how to proceed with the buildings moving forward.

(Photo from Apartments.com)

The title of Evergreen Terrace will go to Riverwalk Homes, which is a public-private partnership between the city and the Chicago-based real estate company, Holsten. The partnership was created with an agreement approved by the council in May 2016.