Walls fall, gas leaks and we have only just begun building the center piece of what all of us here in the Morse area hope is the new Morse Ave. I am concerned that we have trusted you Mr. Coe. We have entrusted to you the first piece of our rejuvenation of the heart of Rogers Park and so far I have seen tenants moved out early, homeless people squatting on your property with electricity no less, a gas line ruptured and abandoned by your demolition crew and now a wall that collapses into the public way.
One can only hope that the crew you hired is properly investigated by the city and that the appropriate consequences are visited upon those who would place so many in real and serious danger. I now question the quality of your judgment and am concerned about the future quality of your actual building of a property. You have done great damage to your reputation in my mind. One can only hope that since you will undoubtedly proceed with your project that you will prove me wrong.
You have decided that our community is a good place for you to make money. As a community, we are always interested in people who want to invest with us in making a better neighborhood. But, we are not interested in irresponsible developers that produce dangerous situations that jeopardize the lives and well being of our residents and our community generally.
We, meaning the entire community, are expecting you to start living up to the basic expectations of building a safe and good quality property. If you cannot find a way to do that then I suspect that you will find that the 49th Ward is not going to be a hospitable place for you to do business. People here expect you to be honest, diligent, and to provide quality and show pride in your work.
There are many who are interested in developing here and most are willing to do a good job of it. If you aren’t, you might want to consider why you have decided to invest here.
David Fagus
Notes
Mr. Robert Coe is the developer responsible for the properties at Morse and Greenview (1448 W. Morse and 6957 N. Greenview). You may recognize his name if you live in the immediate area because he sent out a legally required notice of a Zoning change for the property in question. As a long time member of the zoning committee I was expecting this notice. What I didn't expect was the poor work and judgment we have seen. He has other properties in the ward that are done or in progress including the Pinewood project on Touhy and the building on the 1700 block of Estes with the big windows next to the "leopard house".
