The remaking of North Michigan Avenue will take another step forward next year with the opening of a new two-story Chase/J.P. Morgan banking center in a former clothing store across from the Water Tower.

The high-traffic retail location at 830 N. Michigan Avenue will feature a Chase branch at street level and a J.P. Morgan Financial Center on the second floor, a new concept being rolled out in select markets to serve affluent clients whose net worth exceeds $1 million.

“This is going to be a marquee location for us,” said Stevie Baron, head of affluent banking at J.P. Morgan. “It’s going to be something very special.”

Expected to open next fall, the 11,000-square-foot banking center is being built out in vacant space previously occupied by Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing company, which left in 2021 amid a pandemic retail exodus along the Magnificent Mile.

The combined Chase/J.P. Morgan branch will be located next to another Michigan Avenue newcomer, British chocolatier Hotel Chocolat, which opened its U.S. flagship store last month in a 4,000-square-foot space within the same building.

When the new branch opens, Chase will close longtime locations at 605 N. Michigan Avenue and 875 N. Michigan Avenue, the former John Hancock Center, consolidating operations at the new facility.

In addition to a state-of-the-art Chase branch, the new location will feature the city’s first J.P. Morgan Financial Center on the second level, opening up a suite of services and a dedicated financial team for customers whose net worth tops $1 million.

“When we think about this $1 to $5 million client that we define as affluent, it’s one of the fastest growing wealth segments in the country,” Baron said. “It’s an underserved client base and it’s one that we at JPMorgan Chase are really focused on how to attract and help these clients with all their financial needs.”

Launched last fall in New York and San Francisco, there are now 20 J.P. Morgan Financial Center locations across the country, with 10 more expected to come online next year, including Chicago.

In addition, Chase is planning to offer J.P. Morgan Private Client services inside 50 Chase bank locations with affluent customer bases, Baron said. Qualified customers can also access the services remotely across the U.S.

“We have 150 bankers that operate in commercial office locations across the country, and they’ll be able to service clients too,” Baron said. “We recognize that there are plenty of clients that have the wallet size to become J.P. Morgan Private Clients, and we’re working on how we expand our distribution across multiple different tests right now.”

Customers who come to the new Chicago location next fall will find a full Chase bank downstairs and the J.P. Morgan financial services upstairs. An upgrade from Chase Private Client, which targets customers with net worth between $150,000 to $1 million, the program features a dedicated J.P. Morgan service team, higher limits on moving money around and investment advisers.

Chicago will be one of only three markets in the country with co-located Chase and J.P. Morgan banking centers, with the other two in California. Baron called the Michigan Avenue buildout a “significant investment” for JPMorgan Chase.

“It’s almost like a private club in a retail setting with really beautiful finishes, conference rooms,” Baron said. “We have specialists that help our clients with all their needs, from lending to banking to wealth management, including their small business. And we’re seeing a lot of success with that offering.”

JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, has 5,000 branches nationwide, including a market-leading 267 locations in Chicago and the suburbs. But that number is down from 377 locations in 2015, a nearly 30% reduction in its Chicago-area retail footprint over the last decade.

The two Michigan Avenue Chase branches that are being consolidated won’t close until the new location opens. When it does, the new facility will have more than enough capacity to absorb the business from the two shuttered locations, according to Maria Holmes, who oversees all Chicago-area Chase branches.

For those with the net worth to benefit from a walk upstairs, the new facility will offer customers a lot more services and some built-in synergy, Holmes said.

“When we are meeting clients on the first floor through Chase and we see that we may be able to better serve them through J.P. Morgan Financial Center, because of the design and the fluidity, we’ll be able to make that introduction,” Holmes said.

In recent years, Chase has doubled down on its commitment to Chicago, launching a major renovation of its namesake 60-story tower in the Loop, home to 7,000 bank employees.

The new Michigan Avenue branch will likewise bolster the city’s signature shopping district, which has struggled with vacancies in the post-pandemic landscape, with Uniqlo, Gap and Macy’s among the major retailers to depart.

Experiential tenants such as the Museum of Ice Cream in Tribune Tower, the iconic North Michigan Avenue landmark redeveloped as luxury condos, have filled some of the void. The new Chase/J.P. Morgan Financial Center springing up next to a chocolatier in a vacant clothing store may represent the ongoing evolution of the Magnificent Mile.

“It’s a beautiful, iconic space looking out at the Water Tower – we’re very excited to have that location,” Holmes said. “It also will help with the vitality of Michigan Avenue. We’re committed to the city, and we’re committed to Michigan Avenue.”

rchannick@chicagotribune.com

Expected to open next fall, the 11,000-square-foot banking center is being built out in vacant space previously occupied by Uniqlo, the Japanese clothing company. (JPMorganChase)

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/chase-jpmorgan-michigan-avenue/ 

Marrying into a family of Mexican immigrants taught me new ways to practice my Catholic faith during the holidays. From honoring the Virgin de Guadalupe, to spending hours preparing tamales, these traditions differ from what I learned growing up in rural Wisconsin. But one tradition — the nine-day celebration of Las Posadas — stands out, principally for how it brings people together. Now, as our country finds itself divided on the subject of immigration, understanding this tradition offers a way to rethink the meaning of the holidays and appreciate those who have sacrificed so much to come here.

The four weeks preceding Christmas Day, as I learned in catechism, is Advent. During this time of preparation, we adorn our tables with wreaths, wear purple to signify royalty (as Christ is considered king) and do charitable acts such as food drives in our communities.

Practicing Las Posadas doesn’t break from such traditions as much as deepen their meaning.

The word posada is Spanish for lodging. The tradition begins in how Spanish colonizers blended Mexica/Aztec rituals that celebrated the festival of the 15th month of their calendar, Panquetzaliztli, during the winter solstice in Mexico, to convert Indigenous people to Christianity.  But what makes Las Posadas Christian is emphasizing the part from the Gospel of Luke 2:7 when we learn that Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to stay after registering to pay taxes in Bethlehem. In only that Gospel, do we find Mary and Joseph looking and failing to find lodging and ending up in a manger for the birth of Christ.

Practiced for more than 400 years wherever Latino Christians reside, Las Posadas includes over the course of the nine days before Christmas, daily celebrations of pinatas, food, and prayer. The prayers allude to how Mary and Joseph were traveling, seeking shelter and not finding it. In Minnesota, we took a small statue of the Mother Mary house to house over those nine days, praying together and then sharing a meal with different dishes that each family prepared.

But where most citizens center on the stability of the manger at the center of the Nativity scene when thinking of Christ’s birth, being on the move and searching for lodging adds a different meaning to the Christmas holiday that immigrants embody.

On that meaning, I think of the people with whom I ate and prayed with over those nine days. What brought us together was our faith and the importance of being with one another to practice it.  Unlike me, many of them were like Mary and Joseph, searching for shelter and sanctuary, believing they had found it in the U.S. To celebrate, they created community with me, making Christmas real by sharing food, praying and singing and breaking the occasional pinata with candy, to ensure everyone, including children, had something to enjoy.  Centering the journey as much as the destination, Las Posadas is a tradition based on kindness and inclusion, sacrifice and community.

We are told repeatedly to find the true meaning of Christmas. Holiday movies remind us of love and family. We take work off to be with loved ones during the holiday season. We relax and watch football and basketball games. But Christmas is more than a vacation, as celebrating Christ’s birth is supposed to herald God becoming human for all. Regardless of the different faiths and their recognition of Christmas, or lack thereof, this idea of love without condition and universal community is something we can all aspire to.

Just as important, immigrants and Las Posadas show that the point of the holiday season is in the intentional effort to be together. Preparation for Christ’s arrival is not watching a movie or shopping for gifts, but in taking the time to build the meaningful bonds of community that immigrants, regardless of their status, around our country are doing now. Our country would be a better place if we all appreciated and understood this.

Anthony Pahnke is an associate professor of international relations at San Francisco State University and vice president of the Family Farm Defenders. He can be reached at anthonypahnke@sfsu.edu.  

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/opinion-las-posadas-holiday-christmas/ 

The CTA has teamed up with famed Chicago musical artist Chance the Rapper as the agency urges us to “enjoy the ride.”

That’s the slogan for a new collaboration to promote the CTA.  

It features two announcements by Chance that are playing at rail stations across the system. The recorded messages plug the CTA to the tune “Ride” from Chance’s latest album.

As he reminisces in one greeting, “Growing up in Chicago on the South Side, I took the CTA Red Line from 79th almost every day,” he said. “I won’t ever stop loving the CTA, and I encourage you to keep supporting public transit and its workers. Be safe and just enjoy the ride!”

Acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen touted the collaboration as “a unique partnership between two Chicago icons — CTA and Chance — that allows us to celebrate the special meaning they both have for our great city.”

Chance, an international celebrity and multiple Grammy winner, is a welcome evangelist for Chicago. I am delighted that he is assisting the CTA. I am also a native South Sider who grew up on the Red Line. I still take the CTA daily, sometimes several times a day.

So, as I slide into my seat on the “L,” I could be jamming to his “Ride.”

I may also have to jump out of my seat to keep from getting robbed or worse. Growing up, I was never nervous on the CTA. But in the wake of the pandemic-fueled disruption of the system, the ride can be nerve-racking. 

Enjoy the ride? I regularly encounter passengers who are disruptive, aggressive or even violent. 

In November, violent crimes on buses, platforms, stations and trains increased by 6.6% from the yearly average over the three prior years, ABC affiliate WLS-Ch. 7 Chicago reported.   

“Over the past year and a half, there have been bullet holes in CTA bus windows, people standing with long guns on public transportation and weapons recovered,” the station reported. 

That’s why the Donald Trump administration is right to call out Chicago’s CTA safety issues. 

Related Articles

On Dec. 8, Marc Molinaro, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, wrote Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker to demand that the CTA deliver a “verifiable security enhancement plan.” The agency threatened to withhold federal funds from the CTA if it does not comply. 

Molinaro highlighted the recent horrific attack on Bethany MaGee, which he said “reflects systemic failures in both leadership and accountability on all levels.”

Last month, MaGee was riding a Blue Line train when Lawrence Reed approached her, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire, according to the Chicago police and federal prosecutors. Reed, 50, who was arrested, “has violated the conditions of his home confinement and has previously been arrested 72 times,” Block Club Chicago reported.

“Reporting to FTA shows CTA’s violent crime rate is nearly four times the national average, with four homicides in the past 18 months,” Molinaro wrote.

On Monday, the CTA wrote to ABC 7: “The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has submitted its response to the FTA Special Directive with the requested timeframe.” The CTA has released no details.

Johnson pledged to comply with the federal request but said he is already working on the issue.   

“As I’ve said repeatedly, we do have to look at what the security apparatus looks like for public transportation. (The Chicago Police Department) plays a role in that. The city Department of Public Health plays a role in that. All of us play a role in ensuring that CTA riders experience maximum safety,” Johnson said in response to the letter.

He went on to attack the Trump administration, saying it “continues to politicize on what really could be addressed collectively.”

On Tuesday, Pritzker signed a major transit funding bill passed by the Illinois legislature that includes a safety plan and the creation of a “sworn law enforcement officer crime prevention program” that will include participation of the Cook County sheriff’s office, Chicago police and other local municipalities, ABC 7 reported.   

These politicians don’t have to ride the CTA daily to get to work, school and the grocery store. Riders who depend on the system are at the mercy of people who are roaming the system in search of victims.  

In one recorded message, Chance urges CTA passengers to “be safe.” 

Chance, my man, hip rap songs are a fun treat, but they won’t soothe our fears. Let’s hope the pressure from the feds will pump up the volume on safety and security on the CTA.

Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Wednesday. Write to her at LauraLauraWashington@gmail.com.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/column-chance-the-rapper-chicago-transit-campaign-crime-washington/ 

I am writing to express my strong support for the homeowners, organizations and the more than 1,700 property owners involved in the class-action lawsuit filed regarding the Cook County tax scavenger sale.

This issue is critical given the testimony presented earlier this year to the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate, which highlighted the concerning fact that Black homeowners’ accumulated real estate wealth in Chicago is effectively at zero. This staggering news echoes throughout the South Side and contributes to massive population decline, which is partially driven by scandalous real estate dealings.

The current application of the Cook County tax sales mirrors historical injustices, such as the repealed 2007 bill (HB4050) that resembled a 1830s Black-focused law. The tax sales effectively deny Black residents prolonged homeownership and the ability to build home equity by selling Black homes to flip companies at a significant discount. This practice is fundamentally wrong and causes significant economic harm.

I urge the City Council to flip the script and focus on immediate tax protections. Specifically, I request that the City Council:

Halt the Cook County payment deadline and extend it to mid-February.
Introduce an ordinance calling for a special review of the Cook County tax sale program through a joint committee.

Let us use the anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 1865) as a moment to bless and protect homeowners and end this cycle of economic harm.

It’s only right.

— John Paul Jones, president, Sustainable Englewood Initiatives, and coordinator, CREATE Greater Englewood Together

Protecting homeowners

Thank you for the excellent editorial about Cook County’s convoluted and unfair property tax sales system that takes the homes, and all the equity in the homes, from owners who do not pay their property taxes in a timely way (“The chaotic situation involving property taxes and Cook County tax sales,” Dec. 14). The editorial is correct that the system disproportionally impacts poor and minority homeowners and has the “historical stench of a racist method to strip equity from Black homeowners.”

I would add that the procedures also disproportionally impact homeowners, most of whom are elderly, who have cognitive disabilities such as Alzheimer’s disease. The patterns tend to be similar. The person has owned their home for decades, the home is completely or mostly paid off, and the home has substantial equity. Over the years, the homeowner has always paid their property taxes on time. Then Alzheimer’s or other dementia sets in, and the homeowner misses a property tax payment. As a result, the person loses their longtime home with substantial equity over a minuscule unpaid property tax bill that the homeowner was not even able to understand.

Our office serves as guardian for about 600 mostly older people with cognitive disabilities. Unfortunately, we see this situation with frequency.

As the editorial points out, a federal court recently ruled this system unconstitutional. It is now up to Cook County and the General Assembly to enact reforms consistent with the court’s ruling. We call on them to do so expeditiously and in a manner that protects the rights of poor and minority homeowners as well as those with cognitive disabilities.

— Charles P. Golbert, Cook County public guardian, Chicago

This senior is leaving

The editorial in Sunday’s paper regarding the stratospheric increase in many property tax bills omits a few important facts and information. Although the Tribune Editorial Board correctly points out the faults with the tax sale system and the procedures involved, it somewhat contradicts its point with these statements: “The real value to the Illinois counties, of course, is not the tax sale but the threat of the tax sale that gets people to pay up. However this is resolved, some kind of consequence for not paying will have to be in place.” The board is correct. This does seem like a policy right out of the 19th century. It is inequitable and onerous. So, who’s side is the board on?

I have owned and lived in my home for over 30 years, and the tax has never decreased during any downturn. A more sensible alternative (although less lucrative for the county) would be to tax the property by an amount commensurate with the owner’s ability to pay based on their income level.

My bill increased fourfold. I will most definitely have difficulty paying this as I am a senior on a fixed income. I will have to now sell my home and am considering moving out of the state altogether. This would be a win for the county because a new owner would be assessed at the increased value and be paying a higher tax. Maybe that is the county’s ultimate objective as I’m sure the county could care less about one little old senior citizen. So, I’m leaving.

The board would do Tribune readership a great service by pressing for change and holding the spend-crazy city, county and state leaders accountable for their decisions in all matters financial. Maybe the board can help bring Illinois property owners out of the financially burdensome 19th century and force government to spend within its financial means!

— Joseph Talbott, Chicago

ACA premium increases

With the U.S. Senate’s rejection of legislation to extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, millions of Americans — including tens of thousands of Illinoisans — now face steep premium increases beginning Jan. 1.

For nearly 15 years, the ACA has helped address deep flaws in our fragmented health care system primarily by eliminating previous barriers to coverage for hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans, ensuring nearly 93% of our population now has health insurance, exceeding the national average.

Much of this progress has been driven by enhanced premium tax credits enacted under the American Rescue Plan Act. These credits made coverage affordable for middle-income households that previously struggled to pay for insurance. In Illinois, marketplace enrollment jumped by more than 32,000 when the credits were introduced, and overall enrollment has grown nearly 40% since 2021. This year, Illinois reported record enrollment, with nearly 466,000 people covered.

The numbers are stark. Without tax credits, the average monthly premium in Illinois is $674. With them, nearly 90% of marketplace enrollees pay just $143. That difference is the line between having coverage and going without. The Congressional Budget Office estimates more than 2 million Americans will lose insurance in 2026 if the credits expire. In Illinois, marketplace enrollment could drop by 30%.

This is not to suggest that the ACA is flawless public policy, but we cannot allow these gains to evaporate. Affordable coverage is not just about health; it is about economic stability, public health and fairness. Without insurance, patients delay care, chronic conditions worsen and costs rise for everyone.

As president of the Illinois Life & Health Insurance Council, I know there is much work ahead to address the existing affordability challenges of our health care system. Even with the extension of the enhanced premium tax credits, 2026 premiums are on the rise. However, reducing access to health insurance will make it more difficult for our industry, policymakers and our partners in the health care system to bend that cost curve moving forward.

Extending the enhanced premium tax credits is essential to preserving coverage gains, protecting families from unaffordable costs and ensuring Illinois continues to lead in expanding access to care. The Senate’s vote was a setback, but it should not be the final word.

Preserving affordable coverage is not just good policy; it is a moral imperative.

— Laura Minzer, president, Illinois Life & Health Insurance Council, Springfield

Note to readers: We’d like to know your hopes for the new year. Please send us a letter, of no more than 400 words, to letters@chicagotribune.com by Sunday, Dec. 28. Include your full name and city/town.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/letters-121725-cook-county-tax-sales/ 

Proponents of democracy should be cheering a recent grand jury refusal to reindict New York Attorney General Letitia James — the second grand jury in recent days to do so — after a federal judge dismissed an earlier case against her. Perhaps this and other embarrassing setbacks for Trump administration attempts at “lawfare,” combined with the role Joe Biden-era lawfare played in fueling the president’s political comeback, will convince both parties to abandon what James called “the weaponization of our justice system.” Optimistic observers, in fact, might even imagine these events will convince the two parties to abandon lawfare altogether.

Despite these recent developments, though, there are two big reasons to worry. First, cases are still proceeding against other Donald Trump antagonists, headlined by former national security adviser John Bolton. Secondly, and even more problematic: Since at least the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, something like lawfare has been disturbingly common. This lamentable reality is evident in Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

The Watergate scandal was not exactly lawfare as we discuss it today, because it involved actual crimes. Still, critics who denounced Nixon’s “dirty tricks” typically ignored similar activities under his predecessors. During the administrations of Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, officials weaponized government agencies such as the IRS, FBI, CIA, Department of the Treasury or Department of Justice to bug, wiretap, surveil, harass or otherwise intimidate administration critics, including business groups, journalists and civil rights leaders. Among those targeted at some point during those years were the African American press, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, the “sugar lobby,” Malcolm X, reporters from Newsweek and The New York Times, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Plus Richard Nixon.

That’s right: Nixon himself was targeted for the sorts of abuses that later led to his ouster. He was bugged and his taxes audited, the DOJ tried to conjure up criminal charges against him, and his mail was intercepted and read. This triggered no serious investigations, no Watergate-style scandals. Nixon might understandably have concluded the opportunity to harass political opponents was a perk that came with the presidency. Most alarming, in some of the cases mentioned above, the abuses were technically legal because the people who should have been policing them had authorized them or carried them out.

The chief difference, then, between Nixon and those aforementioned predecessors was that he faced investigations they did not and was caught trying to obstruct them. In this way, Nixon’s antagonists were unfair, yet they reaped a tremendous political payoff. Less than two years after Nixon’s landslide reelection, he became the only U.S. president to resign. Three months later, Democrats gained a whopping 48 House seats, plus five in the Senate, in the 1974 congressional elections. And in 1976, largely because of Nixon’s long shadow, Democrats claimed their only presidential election victory between 1964 and 1992.

Similarly, the Iran-Contra scandal damaged Ronald Reagan politically. It did not drive him from office, but it reduced him, in the words of one sympathetic historian, to a “caretaker president” for the remainder of his term. The scandal arose from a scheme to fund so-called Contra guerrillas trying to overthrow Nicaragua’s communist-led government while Congress prohibited U.S. aid to the Contras. After failed efforts at diplomacy with the Nicaraguan government, at the end of 1981, Reagan decided to support the Contras. During 1982, Congress imposed restrictions on that aid, then in 1984, it banned Contra aid for fiscal year 1985. Congress subsequently reversed course in 1985, voting to resume aid, then removing all restrictions in 1986, before the scandal broke.

In denouncing Reagan, critics talked and acted as though that vote for the fiscal year 1985 was the only congressional action on Contra aid that counted. And this criminalization of policy differences not only damaged Reagan; the resulting scandal’s impact lingered into 1992, when an independent counsel’s highly politicized indictments, on the eve of George H.W. Bush’s bid for reelection, helped defeat Reagan’s former vice president.

But while lawfare worked for its practitioners against Nixon and Reagan, it boomeranged on Clinton’s antagonists. During his presidency, the U.S. House approved articles of impeachment that charged him with perjury and obstruction of justice over his response to a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment. His defenders dismissed Clinton’s problems as “just sex,” as though his adultery was the issue and not the perjury and obstruction of justice. The implication, that perjury could be overlooked in sexual harassment cases, undermined sexual harassment law with consequences that only became clear after the #MeToo movement emerged, but in the short term, it worked for Clinton: The Senate acquitted him, and in 1998, his party lost no Senate seats and actually gained five in the House, an almost unheard-of success for the party of a second-term incumbent in midterm elections.

Lawfare, then, is undemocratic and can backfire, but it sometimes pays big political dividends. Hopefully, its recent failures, for both parties, will convince politicians, and the American people, to demand it be tossed on the scrap heap — immediately and forever.

John Soares teaches history at the University of Notre Dame. This essay reflects his opinion and not that of Notre Dame or any part of it.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/opinion-letitia-james-donald-trump-justice-system-watergate-scandal/ 

The buyer who paid $11 million in October for an eight-bedroom Georgian-style mansion on 8.68 acres in Lake Forest — a mansion that is known for its extensive gardens — has been revealed to be Brookfield, Wisconsin-based multifamily residential developer Cal Akin, who plans to renovate the mansion’s interior and enhance its grounds.

The $11 million paid is the seventh-highest amount any Chicago-area buyer has paid for a home in 2025, eclipsed only by two $30 million-plus megasales of lakefront mansions in Winnetka, a $14.5 million sale in Kenilworth, a $12 million sale in Winnetka, an $11.4 million sale in Winnetka and an $11.25 million sale in Lake Bluff.

Known as Camp Rosemary and located just southeast of Lake Forest College’s campus, the estate previously had been owned by the late Kennetha Love “Posy” Krehbiel, who owned it for 34 years until her death at age 83 in 2022. Krehbiel had bought the estate — at that time, just 4.79 acres — in 1988 with her then-husband, former Molex Co-Chairman John H. Krehbiel Jr., for $1.95 million.

Now, Akin has hired Zoran Mijatovic’s Libertyville-based Landmark Luxury Group as general contractor, and Akin has received permission from Lake Forest officials to begin interior demolition on an exploratory basis to determine the scope of work needed. In addition, Akin is working with what he has characterized as a “celebrated UK garden designer” to improve the estate.

“I look forward to working with everyone @ Lake Forest as we renovate this property with sensitivity to its origins but bringing the mechanicals into the modern era,” Akin wrote in an email to Lake Forest officials on Nov. 25. “I love the grounds and we are working with a celebrated UK garden designer to enhance everything.”

In a brief phone call with Elite Street, Akin declined to comment further. By phone, Mijatovic also declined to comment.

Built in the early 1900s and designed by noted architect Benjamin Marshall, the mansion was constructed for wholesale and retail magnate John T. Pirie Sr., whose father had helped found Carson, Pirie Scott & Co. After Pirie’s death in 1940, the mansion later was owned by patent and copyright attorney Charles W. Hills Jr., who died in 1943, and then by Laurance H. Armour Jr. of Armour meatpacking fame. The estate’s landscaping was designed in the 1920s by noted landscape architect Rose Standish Nichols.

After buying the estate from Armour, the Krehbiels expanded the property to its current size by buying several adjoining parcels in the 1990s, and they also enlarged the mansion in 1996 through an addition designed by architect Thomas Beeby, who also was enlisted to design a pool house and guesthouse on the property.

The Krehbiels spent many years upgrading the estate’s gardens, which today have 21 outdoor garden “rooms,” along with bentgrass lawns, seasonal garden beds, hedges and espalier trees.

The 11,787-square-foot mansion has nine bathrooms, seven fireplaces, a portico, an attached coach house, a conservatory, a three-story gable, elevator access to all four levels, high ceilings, millwork and a bifurcated staircase with a library at the mezzanine.

Posy Krehbiel’s family first listed the estate in August 2024 for $14.975 million and never budged on the asking price. Akin bought the estate through an Illinois limited liability company whose manager is an opaque Delaware limited liability company that masks his identity.

The estate consists of five parcels, which together had a $126,323 property tax bill in the 2024 tax year.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/wisconsin-developer-cal-akin-was-the-buyer-who-paid-11-million-for-georgian-style-lake-forest-mansion/ 

Tuesday’s marathon City Council Finance Committee session, as mind-numbing as it could get at points, was a remarkable moment in the history of Chicago government.

We saw a City Council, in the face of a mayoral administration relentlessly driven by ideology, for the first time wrest control of Chicago’s budget in the name of pragmatic solutions to a crisis. The committee’s 22-13 approval of the alternative revenue package forged by Aldermen Scott Waguespack, 32nd, and Nicole Lee, 11th, and shepherded by panel chair Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, was a critical step in signaling to the broader world that Chicago recognizes it exists in a competitive landscape and isn’t a progressive bubble unto itself.

A majority of the council has made it abundantly clear to Mayor Brandon Johnson that his proposal to revive the city’s corporate head tax — a monthly tax on each worker employed in Chicago by large private-sector firms — is a non-starter. But with a year-end budget deadline looming, the opposition bloc looked to garner more support by making concessions to the mayor. They scrapped a proposed increase to the city’s monthly trash-collection fee of $9.50, and they allowed for a $6 million increase in summer jobs for teens, a top priority for Johnson.

We’ll state upfront that the document the committee produced and approved isn’t perfect.

Chicago’s garbage fee, for example, is far lower than nearly all peer cities and doesn’t come close to covering the cost of the service; we believe a reasonable increase is more than warranted. As it stands, Chicagoans who live in multifamily housing must pay for private garbage collection and are subsidizing through their property taxes or rents their fellow Chicagoans who live in single-family homes or two- or three-flats.

For those, including the mayor, who derided the trash-fee increase as an attack on working people, we would remind them that lots of poor and working residents of this city live in apartments and condos. And they are effectively paying twice over for trash services thanks to the refusal to allow for any fee increase — an argument Cate Plys so effectively made earlier this month in our pages.

We also have misgivings about opening the door to video wagering in bars, a major expansion of legal gambling that would affect lower- and middle-income Chicagoans far more than the tourists and conventioneers who are the primary target of the Bally’s casino now under construction at the former Chicago Tribune Freedom Center. The aldermanic opposition bloc projects $7 million in net revenue from video terminals in bars in 2026, but far more than that in later years.

We think it makes more sense to modestly increase a highly subsidized garbage fee than it does to expand gambling so aggressively into the neighborhoods. But politics are what they are, and the demagoguery on the trash fee unfortunately has been effective.

It also was disappointing to see the Finance Committee approve the lion’s share of the record $2.8 billion in new bonding authority the Johnson administration requested. The panel cut $1 billion from $2 billion the mayor’s financial team wanted for money-saving refinancing. But it approved $449 million to cover $166 million in back pay owed to firefighters under a labor contract finalized earlier this year as well as more than $280 million for current and future legal settlements — mainly for past police misconduct.

And the panel endorsed another $1.3 billion for future capital projects despite the fact that the city has $2.4 billion in unused bond authority for infrastructure from past issuances. Ald. Bill Conway, 34th, vice chair of the Finance Committee, tried to eliminate that $1.3 billion from the ordinance, but he was overruled by his fellow committee members.

Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski said that needed projects would be delayed if the council didn’t vote on the new capital plan. But here’s the thing: The city’s credit rating is teetering; it may well be downgraded once this budget is finalized, especially with the council now appearing set on debt-financing operational costs — a major fiscal no-no for credit rating agencies. Now is the time to err on the side of caution, not behave as if Chicago is in a business-as-usual situation vis-a-vis the bond markets.

We’re sure to have more to say on debt and the bond markets as the city looks to tap investors again early next year.

Despite our misgivings, we believe the opposition alders, who have performed remarkably well in hashing together an alternative in the face of a mulish and unhelpful administration, deserve support from the full council as this budget makes its way through the process in the next few days. As Ald. Lee pointed out to the Finance Committee, the tax and fee increases in the alternative budget are overwhelmingly being levied on businesses rather than individuals — and that’s without passage of the toxic head tax. Businesses are shouldering 84% of that load while residents are absorbing 16%.

For the sake of the city, the mayor ought to make this easier for all involved and declare he will not veto this plan if it ends up being the will of the council majority, which it appears it will be.

After all, it’s not just his future electoral prospects that are at stake in this moment. Chicago’s budgetary circus slowly but surely is drawing unwanted notice around the country. Editorial boards in cities far away are pointing to our example as a cautionary tale. We are rapidly becoming the poster child for how not to govern a city.

Credit analysts, of course, also are lurking. “The level of brinksmanship we are seeing in Chicago is uncharacteristic of many other rated local governments,” Michael Rinaldi of Fitch Ratings told Bloomberg News. In the cold-eyed world of municipal finance, cities don’t want to be “uncharacteristic” in that sort of way.

Let’s exit this road to fiscal and economic oblivion, and get to work making Chicago a safe place in which to invest again.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/editorial-budget-finance-committee-city-council-pat-dowell-brandon-johnson-aldermen/ 

We love seeing the immense fiscal power of nongovernmental resources wielded for good in Chicago. 

We’ve seen this many times recently, including $100 million in collective donations from the business community to bolster public safety through community violence intervention. Now there’s another moment to celebrate: a $10 million investment, and that’s the word, from a family foundation. It’s aimed at expanding affordable homeownership in Chicago neighborhoods that need it most.

Chicago’s problem with housing is that there simply isn’t enough, especially when it comes to options ordinary people can actually manage to buy. We need to build affordable homes, plain and simple. And we need to encourage homeownership, allowing people to build equity. 

So Tuesday brought good news on all those fronts. The Pritzker Traubert Foundation announced that it has awarded its huge ($10 million!) 2025 Chicago Prize to Reclaiming Chicago, a community-led coalition working to expand affordable homeownership on the South and West sides. The substantial investment will help finance new single-family and two-flat homes, beginning with a large-lot development in Chicago Lawn that is expected to deliver about 125 new affordable homes. Beyond that initial project, the funds then will seed a revolving loan program designed to lower construction costs and speed development across four South and West side neighborhoods. 

We met in March with representatives from Reclaiming Chicago working on solving this problem. They outlined their mission: To build modest single-family homes in neighborhoods such as Roseland, North Lawndale, Back of the Yards and Chicago Lawn and sell them at an affordable price to people with modest incomes who are prepared to become homeowners and invest in their neighborhoods. Back then, they’d already gotten off to a strong start, having raised money for construction from an assortment of big banks, foundations and other deep-pocketed contributors since 2018. They showed us photos of the very solid homes they’re building and told us stories about the people living in them who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to realize the dream of homeownership.

Their enthusiasm and clear vision made us feel hopeful then, and still does today.

This is a problem the private sector is better positioned to solve, in coordination with housing officials, of course. 

We much prefer Reclaiming Chicago’s approach to some of the recent city-led affordable housing efforts. Consider the Fifth City Commons project, a brand new 43-unit development in East Garfield Park on the West Side that opened earlier this year. The $38 million project cost amounted to an eye-popping $884,000 per taxpayer-subsidized rental unit. As longtime affordable housing developer and advocate David Doig claimed in a LinkedIn post, “That’s more than it costs to build a luxury unit in Fulton Market or the Gold Coast.”

Doig is also part of the Reclaiming Chicago effort which operates far more efficiently. 

Chicago needs more housing, and it needs that housing to be affordable. The Chicago Prize investment in Reclaiming Chicago shows what’s possible when private capital, local knowledge and public goals align.

$10 million is enough money to have a substantial impact on an effort such as this, modest as it now may be. Yet more importantly, it will encourage investment by others and help write a blueprint for an idea worth expanding.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/affordable-housing-pritzker-traubert-chicago-prize-reclaiming-chicago/ 

“Dine well, do good.” 

It’s a simple quote plastered in big, bold letters above Inspiration Kitchens’ service window in East Garfield Park. But it’s a value that extends beyond the front-of-house and out into the world, where students hope to land a job in the culinary industry after they’ve sharpened their knife skills and learned to chiffonade basil. 

Chicago’s only full-service social enterprise restaurant supports Inspiration Corp.’s job training program, essentially a culinary school boot camp shortened and condensed to help individuals who have experienced poverty, homelessness or both get that foot in the door. 

Nancy Phillips, chief program officer of Inspiration Corp., said the program’s ultimate goal is to give students a fair shot at finding success, despite socioeconomic barriers. Phillips said the training opens doors to jobs across industries in food. Former students — including six from the most recent cohort — have found employment bussing at restaurants, working in the prepared foods department at grocery stores, cooking in cafeterias in schools and hospitals, doing inventory for a supermarket, and one former student now works at Avec.

“Culinary school is about two years — this is 12 weeks,” said Beatrice Maldonado, chef instructor and employment specialist at Inspiration Kitchens. “It’s not for someone who is just enthusiastic about food and home cooking. Our program is not just a ‘learn to cook,’ — it’s training to cook and operate at a high, commercial level.”

After earning their ServSafe Food Handler certification in week one, students begin with basic culinary techniques, such as knife techniques and proper sanitation practices. The initial four weeks focus on lectures, demonstrations, experiential learning, and career development activities, including resume writing and interview practice.

Monday through Thursday, chef instructors show students how a kitchen runs. Students rotate working the kitchen line, prepping ingredients for dishes on the restaurant’s menu, or exploring recipes as part of their training.

A hallway separates the restaurant from the staff offices. It is covered in culinary terminology — words such as “amuse-bouche” and “consommé.” A bulletin board holds job notices for a line cook and catering gig at Boka Restaurant Group, and a few calls for bussers.

One recent fall afternoon, the students, all over the age of 18, were about to dive into scones, the seemingly simple baked good that’s a solid teaching tool for foundational baking skills, said lead chef instructor Scott Wittkopf. Mastering the proper technique results in a flaky, tender crumb, while small mistakes result in a tough and dense dough.

Students were spread out across the kitchen, each with a recipe sheet, while Wittkopf explained why the butter needs to be cold. Some students, such as Joey Schroeder, were extending themselves beyond the scones. Schroeder, 29, was peeling and chopping dozens of peaches that were recovered from the Green City Farmers Market earlier in the week.

Each week, they collect items from the market that would otherwise go to waste. They had recovered 751 pounds of produce and were finding ways to use the vegetables and fruit. The peaches would be turned into jam to accompany the freshly made scones.

While measuring cranberries and white chocolate chips, student Jaclyn Shortoff, 45, said she had never made a proper scone before, despite having worked in pastry for 12 years. 

Shortoff, a Connecticut native, graduated from the now-defunct Lincoln Culinary Institute in Hartford, followed by stints at a few small bakeries before landing at Foxwoods Resort and Casino. While Shortoff shared her origin story, a classmate came by to add a footnote: “She’s baked for famous people!” 

The students quickly become like family to one another, said Phillips.

“They come from myriad backgrounds, but here they share a goal of making their future better,” she said. 

In June 2024, on the heels of an abusive relationship, Shortoff left the East Coast with little to no money to move south to Louisiana for a fresh start, also leaving behind a turbulent relationship with her two adult children. She scheduled a multi-leg journey with a stop in Chicago, but it took an unexpected turn. 

“I was at Union Station and I had my money out and somebody saw it … they ended up robbing me,” she said. “So I actually got stuck here in Chicago.” 

The robbery triggered Shortoff’s trauma-induced psychosis, she said. She ended up in the emergency room and was transferred to the psychiatric unit. After 21 days, Shortoff was sent to the overnight shelter at the Garfield Community Center.

Case workers secured a bed for Shortoff at Deborah’s Place, the women’s housing assistance shelter where she stayed for three months. Deborah’s Place helped Shortoff find housing in a studio apartment in the South Shore neighborhood, where she’s been since last October. It also introduced her to Inspiration Kitchens.

Two weeks before the Inspiration Kitchens program concluded in November, Shortoff landed a job at Sweet Mandy B’s in Streeterville, preparing ingredients and supporting the bakery’s pastry chefs. But a month into the role, she was let go.

“They said it just wasn’t the right fit,” she said. It was a gut punch for Shortoff, who hoped the job would finally give her the consistency and confidence she’d lacked for so long. 

Jaclyn Shortoff makes caramel sauce at Inspiration Kitchens in East Garfield Park on Oct. 8, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

But Shortoff said she’s happy to land back where it all started: Last week, Inspiration Kitchens offered her a front-of-house position that pays $17 an hour. Though her end goal is to work in a kitchen, she said the program changed her life. 

“I’m the happiest I’ve been in over 10 years,” Shortoff said. “I feel like I finally belong somewhere.” 

Shortoff will soon be waiting tables on Fridays and Saturdays, when the Inspiration Kitchens restaurant is open for brunch. 

The star of the menu is the shrimp and grits, according to head chef Antwain Lee, a former student of Inspiration Corp.’s job training program. Regular customers swing by specifically for the warm, cheesy grits with collard greens. There are salads featuring Brussels sprouts and fried green tomatoes, smashburgers and fried chicken sandwiches, gumbo, omelets and buttermilk pancakes. 

A section of the menu is reserved for “Collaborative Cuisines” — sandwiches students created alongside the chefs. For now, there’s a grilled chicken Cubano and a vegetarian sandwich on focaccia with grilled zucchini, squash, eggplant, roasted tomato, spinach, arugula, pesto and balsamic glaze. 

Phillips said Inspiration Corp. makes do with a combination of private and public funds and a single-digit percentage of earned income from the restaurant.

Traffic at the restaurant could be better, Lee noted, a concern not too different from many other eateries across the city. On Fridays, Inspiration Kitchens averages around 25 customers and on Saturdays, a little less than that. 

Inspiration Kitchens other location in Uptown closed in 2016 due to struggles to remain viable because of dwindling public support for homelessness and low-income populations.

Margot Niebes, Inspiration Corp.’s associate director of external relations, said that for 35 years, the nonprofit has found ways to bolster services for vulnerable communities, but the core principles have remained the same as in 1989 when Lisa Nigro, a Chicago police officer, started walking the streets of Uptown with her nephew’s Radio Flyer wagon filled with coffee and sandwiches for people in need. Inspiration Kitchens keeps a Radio Flyer red wagon at the front entrance as a reminder of where it all started.

Over the years, that wagon grew into a van, then a bus, and eventually a full-service cafe for people experiencing homelessness. Three decades later, the organization still embodies Nigro’s values, Niebes said, now fully investing in individuals looking for a sustainable career in food service. During the first week of class, students complete a resource assessment to indicate where they need support, she said.

“There’s a myriad of different circumstances that folks are dealing with when they come here, our team is really trying to help them as a whole person,” Niebes said. 

If students need their vision checked before working on their knife skills, case managers can help set up an appointment with an eye specialist. If a student needs cell phone minutes, Inspiration Kitchens will try to foot the bill. For students who need to wash their clothes, the facility has a fully equipped laundry area. If someone needs a shower, there’s a place for that too. 

For Ashanti Jones, a 23-year-old student who lives in East Garfield Park, Inspiration Kitchens provides a $25 gas card so her mom can drop her off at the West Side facility. Jones said the program has given her financial freedom to develop interpersonal skills, while also boosting her resume.

During weeks eight through 12 of the program, Inspiration Corp. will pay a student’s wages even if they’ve been placed with an off-site employer. The hope, Niebes explained, is that the student will eventually get hired full time.

As was the case for Jesus Rosario, a graduate of Inspiration Kitchens’ second-to-last cohort of the year. Rosario was sent to intern at the Burnham Yacht Club, and a few weeks later, the gig turned into a job.

“To be 100% honest, I was expecting to finish the two-week internship and then just be at square one — like OK, now it’s time to look for a job,” Rosario said. 

Rosario is working as a line cook with Burnham Yacht Club executive chef, Corey Rice, whose resume boasts several TV appearances.

“I wasn’t familiar with chef Corey until I got there, but I did my due diligence — I went, ‘holy cow, he was on ‘Chopped!’” Rosario said with a laugh, also noting his boss’s 2016 “MasterChef” Season 7 appearance representing Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood. 

Rice said Rosario, 28, is a “special talent.” He often catches Rosario in the kitchen after hours, practicing knife skills or going over new recipes for the menu’s short rib bourguignon or lobster pot pie. Rosario said he embraces smaller, yet essential tasks such as peeling potatoes or plucking cilantro leaves, or practicing how to swipe sauce on a plate.

“He’s still a little green, as we like to say in the kitchen, but his work and dedication and the effort that he puts in day in and day out … how he’s learned to be innovative. He has that gift,” Rice said. “That’s what I like to see come out of the program. Those that are hungry, not just to cook, but making sure that not only are we putting something out that’s good on a plate, but it’s also good from the heart. Because that’s how we feed people.” 

At the private club, Rice has employed four students over the past three years of his partnership with Inspiration Corp. The social enterprise has several partners across the city, including Rush University Medical Center and Eataly Chicago, which work with employment specialists at the nonprofit to help students find work.

Though food was in Rosario’s genes (his grandfather owned Las Tres Cucharas in the ’80s), his initial plan was to get into filmmaking. He attended Flashpoint Chicago, a branch of the liberal arts school Columbia College Hollywood that no longer exists. The COVID-19 pandemic derailed Rosario’s post-grad plans, and even finding small jobs around local film sets became difficult. Rosario said he considers himself a “creator, first and foremost,” so he started tinkering with the idea of another creative outlet — one that could honor his family’s roots. 

His mom, who helped out in the kitchen at Las Tres Cucharas, nudged him toward getting into a culinary program. 

“The rest is history,” he laughed. “It was a bit of a rude awakening in the best way, because I felt like (the program) was the missing piece to the puzzle. In life, we’re always going through this journey of trying to learn about who we are and how to be better and I think that’s what I’ve just been trying to do.” 

Applications for the 12-week Food Service Training and Employment Program are on a rolling basis. For more information, visit inspirationkitchens.org/job-training.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/17/inspiration-kitchens/