The BUILT in Cook Loan Fund—reimagining the suburbs - Metropolitan Planning Council

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The BUILT in Cook Loan Fund—reimagining the suburbs

Photo courtesy of Cook County

Cook County President Preckwinkle announces the BUILT in Cook Loan Fund.

On April 18, 2013, Cook County President Preckwinkle officially announced the BUILT in Cook Loan Fund—a $30 million loan pool that will expand the County’s ability to finance projects benefiting the region’s economic growth and spurring job creation. Standing for "Broadening Urban Investment to Leverage Transportation," the BUILT fund can finance four types of projects:

  1. Transit-oriented, mostly mixed-use developments within a half mile of passenger rail;
  2. Cargo-oriented projects near freight rail lines and terminals;
  3. Mixed-use hospitality/service sector projects near transit lines; and
  4. Business development loans

This financing supports work that MPC is engaged in with the West Cook Housing Collaborative, the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, Enterprise Community Partners, and IFF to create transit-oriented development loan funds for housing investments in Cook County’s south and west suburbs. The funds provide predevelopment dollars for the costs of initial financial applications and legal, architectural and engineering fees, as well as acquisition funding for obtaining the site. BUILT in Cook expands on these sub-regional efforts to leverage public and private reinvestment in suburban Cook County.

The BUILT fund is financed through U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 108 program. This program allows qualified communities to convert their Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding into federally guaranteed loans that are used to stimulate private investment in revitalization efforts. Given the need for scale, HUD allows communities to borrow up to five times their CDBG allocation under Section 108. The BUILT in Cook loans are focused on stimulating the region’s economic development while ensuring that the benefits are felt by all—for instance, 51 percent of jobs created through the fund must benefit low- and moderate-income households.

Along with our support for other efforts coming out of Cook County at the moment—the Cook County Land Bank and the Cook County Council of Economic Advisors’ plan for regional economic growth— we applaud the County for its proactive efforts to stimulate the private market, expand jobs, and turn vacant, blighted land back to productive assets. Cook County has an enormous wealth of opportunities, from transportation infrastructure to the manufacturing industry to an educated workforce, so the key becomes aligning the region with a changing global economy. With a focus on suburban growth and development, BUILT in Cook promises to promote a flourishing economy built on rail, effective planning, and the power of community.

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