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CHICAGO-The owner of a 389,000-sf industrial building, formerly used by Helene Curtis and Unilever, is getting $2.4 million in tax increment financing assistance to help lure Coca-Cola as a tenant. MLRP Merlin, LLC will spend more than $5 million to make improvements to the 208,000 sf Coca-Cola will lease for a distribution facility, as well as create additional parking and add landscaping at 1401 N. Cicero Ave.

Forced out of a location on Cermak Road near Ashland Avenue because of the expansion of neighboring Juarez High School, Coca-Cola was in the market for new space, explains Val Zillig of the Department of Planning and Development. The city wanted to keep 120 jobs in the city, he adds, and Coca-Cola is increasing that number by relocating some employees from Alsip and Niles. Coca-Cola is signing a 15-year deal, Zillig says, and the $2.4-million TIF subsidy endorsed the week by the community development commission helps close a gap to land the soda maker. Although terms were not disclosed, Kamins Tomasz Kritt has been marketing the space at $4.95 per sf.

The facility was built in 1988 for Helene Curtis, but was sold to Unilever in 1996. However, that company ceased operations there in 2002, selling the building with 33-foot ceilings to ML Realty Partners and Merlin Funding in 2003 for $12.6 million. Before finding a willing prospect in Coca-Cola, Itasca-based MLRP Merlin, LLC landed plumbing and pipe supplier Ferguson Industries for 181,000 sf. Tenant improvements for Coca-Cola are expected to be completed by September.

"I'm excited because I came into office in 2000, and had a vacancy in 2002 with a couple hundred jobs leaving the city right away," says 37th Ward Alderman Emma M. Mitts. Not only would the city's TIF deal guarantee local jobs, the redeveloped industrial building is southwest of a 210,943-sf Menard home improvement store, which will replace another former industrial building at 4401 W. North Ave.

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Industrial Owner Gets Help to Land Coca-Cola

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