Mundelein_web

MUNDELEIN in Lake County, and I doubt anybody in Illinois, has set out to build a village hall with a tenant in mind. That’s some- thing the private sector would do to help cover the cost of the building and the long- term maintenance costs.” In that it was exhibiting its own entrepreneurial spirit, the Village decided that it was uniquely positioned to be what Lobaito calls “an enclave for start-up businesses.We could not compete with the regional mall in Vernon Hills, right next door; we could not compete with the existing historic fabric of Libertyville that has a quaint downtown with an entertainment area,” he admits. “But what we could do better than both of them was provide better customer service to our businesses and be more business friendly. “And so, that brand promise, three years ago, began to drive all of our strategic planning. One of the offshoots of that was our Village Board adopting a grant program. The first year it com- mitted $100,000 and we promoted the follow- ing: ‘If you come here and start a business, we will give you up to $50,000 in grant money on a 50/50 basis. If you spend a dollar, we’ll give you a dollar.’ But those dollars had to be spent on things like the mechanical systems of the build- ing. ‘If you need to change the wiring, we’ll help pay for that on a 50/50 basis.We’ll help you with the HVAC systems; we’ll help you with the plumbing systems. And, if you would make the exterior of your building look nicer, redo your façades; we’ll throw that in, as well.’ “We had two objectives, strategically: Let’s encourage people to make investments in the existing building stock that we have because even if the business fails, that work doesn’t go away. It still improves the value of the building and makes it more attractive for the next busi- ness. Number two: we want to improve how we look, so let’s help them pay for improvements to the exterior of the building. These were very • Cold Forming • Hot Forging • Warm Forming • CNC Machining • Manual & Robotic Welding • Multi-Spindle Screw Machining • Hydromat Rotary Transfer Precision Machining • Fiberglass Pultrusion • Fiberglass Compression Molding • Spray-Up Fiberglass Molding • Injection & Insert Molding • Polymer Concrete Molding • Secondary Metal Operations • Automated Assembly