July 30–McCormick Place officials filed a lawsuit Monday to gain control of a Lakeside Bank property needed for the development of a DePaul arena and an adjacent 500-room hotel.
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, or McPier, filed a “quick-take” eminent domain lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court for a parcel at 2141 S. Indiana Ave., just north of the convention center’s West Building.
Such lawsuits allow a government to take immediate possession of a property if the court finds there is adequate public use. Then, the litigation continues to determine the ultimate sale price, according to Gerald Korngold, a professor at New York Law School.
Lakeside Bank is majority owned by the Cacciatore family, whose patriarch, Victor J. Cacciatore Sr., was a longtime DePaul trustee and with his family has donated more than $1 million to the university.
He told the Tribune in a interview last week that the parcel is the site of the bank’s best branch office and that he had no interest in selling it.
On Tuesday, his son, attorney Victor Cacciatore II, said, “We’re going to take every stop possible to see that the bank is treated fairly.”
McPier once owned the Lakeside Bank property but deeded it to Lakeside in 1994 in exchange for another parcel it needed to construct the convention center’s South Building. The authority previously tried to reacquire the property through eminent domain in 2008, before its plans for a hotel were sidelined by the recession.
At that time, appraisers for Lakeside valued the land at about $13 million while McPier valued it between $7 million and $8 million.
McPier also must acquire two other parcels on the block, as well as land on a kitty-corner block that is slated for a 1,200-room convention hotel. It has not filed any other eminent domain lawsuits yet, a spokeswoman said.
About $55 million in city property-tax funds is expected to be used to help acquire land for this venture.
The filing of the lawsuit was first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business.
kbergen@tribune.com
