In 1977, Andrew Lappin, 23 years old and fresh out of college, marched into town from Boston and booked himself a room in a fleabag hotel on South Michigan Avenue.
It’s about as far west as you can go and still be in Chicago. Across the street to the south is Cicero, a working-class suburb; to the north and east are Austin and North Lawn, two predominantly black communities starved for investment.
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The great exodus that depleted Chicago’s industrial community began in the late 50s and early 60s. The primary reasons included the city’s high labor costs and the lure of suburban amenities.
“The biggest thing is labor, it’s so much cheaper to do business in the south,” says Lappin. “These businesses say, hey, why should I bother with the unions. I’ll go south, where they’ll work for next to nothing compared to up here.
A few years later the family sold its manufacturing business, and Lappin’s father, Robert, moved into industrial real estate full-time. In 1977, Andrew was dispatched to establish a base in Chicago. His first project here was the conversion of a former Carson Pirie Scott warehouse in Pilsen. That venture, however, was not as difficult as the Sunbeam effort.
So, Lappin applied for a tax break–a laborious trek that brought him face to face with city and county officials. “The county taxes industrial property at 40 percent of its assessed value. They’ll knock that down to 16 percent if, like us, you’re investing in an economically distressed area. Before the assessor will do that, you need City Council approval.
Lappin got his tax break, as well as an Industrial Revenue Bond, arranged by the state Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, and then moved to the next phase: renovation and rental.
