Another deal for Daley's nephew
ROBERT VANECKO | Apartment project got $5 mil. from city
Mayor Daley had a ready answer when the Sun-Times reported last month that his nephew Robert Vanecko was given $63 million in city-related pension funds to invest in a risky real estate venture:
The mayor said he had nothing to do with it.
But City Hall has agreed to give as much as $5 million to a business that lists Vanecko as one of its principals, records show.
The City Council OKd the deal a year ago to help build a $22.6 million apartment tower for low-income senior citizens on the Near North Side. Another principal in the deal, according to state records, is Allison S. Davis, a mayoral supporter.
City officials say they didn't know Vanecko was involved in the project, which Davis -- then a Daley appointee to the Chicago Plan Commission -- has been trying to build for more than two years with money from the city and state.
But Vanecko's role in the deal was no secret. State files on the project include a corporate biography of Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, the company Davis is using to develop the project. The document identifies Vanecko as one of the company's "principals,'' along with Davis and his son Jared Davis.
One of the mayor's closest friends, Terry Newman, knew Vanecko was involved in the project. Newman chairs the Illinois Housing Development Authority, which twice has voted to approve the project at Chicago and Cleveland avenues, called Cleveland Tower.
"Chairman Newman has known Robert Vanecko . . . for many, many years and was aware that he was involved in various real estate transactions with the Davis Group,'' IHDA spokeswoman Man Yee Lee says.
A Vanecko spokesman says the mayor's nephew has no ownership stake in Cleveland Tower or in Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, despite what the records show.
Vanecko "did some work for them as an independent consultant and ... may have been listed as part of the team on some state filing,'' Vanecko spokesman Peter Cunningham says. "Bob Vanecko is not currently involved in any way -- including as a consultant.''
The state's deal to give Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners as much as $11 million for the project, along with $12 million in federal low-income-housing tax credits, was approved two years ago. The tax credits were set to expire at the end of this year. But Davis hasn't started construction yet, so the state agreed to extend the tax credits for two more years.
And now the project could be dead -- unless Davis can get more money from the city to add a parking garage.
"When IHDA approved the tax credits, IHDA asked them to include a parking garage,'' Cunningham says. "This request delayed the project and drove up the cost. They went to the city to get more dollars to help pay for the garage and meet the rising costs caused by the delay.''
Davis met with Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) this month seeking more money for Cleveland Tower.
"It's way behind schedule,'' Burnett says. "Allison just came back to us and told us he had a big budget gap on the property. We don't know if we can deal with his budget gap -- he's asking for [another] $2 [million] to $3 million.
"Every time he comes to me, he's crying broke. We don't know if he really wants to do it.''
Tim Novak