Forest Park board hears tax-incentive pitch for two Gillum Logistics buildings, asks for clearer wage and local-hire data

Forest Park officials on 2025-10-15 heard a presentation from Robinson Weeks representatives about a request for property tax abatements on two Gillum Logistics Center buildings, and they asked developers for clearer wage, local-hire and fee comparisons before considering a formal vote in November.

Frances Jackson, vice president of asset management with Robinson Weeks Partners, told the board the abatement is a competitive marketing tool when recruiting large tenants. "That tax incentive really does, make a big difference to a big company who's looking for where they should place their home and their, their jobs and their, investment," Jackson said.

Ed, a developer representative who shared spreadsheet figures, described two buildings under consideration: a 106,000-square-foot building (identified in the presentation as Gillum 651) and a 570,000-square-foot building. Under the proposed 10-year schedule — "50% the first year declining 5% a year" — he calculated tenant savings of roughly $684,000 for the smaller building and about $2,000,000 for the larger one. He also presented an "authority fee" option; at 1/8 of 1% the fee on the larger project was calculated at roughly $274,000 over 10 years, while a quarter‑percent fee would be materially higher.

Board members pressed for specifics about jobs and wages tied to the abatements. The developers listed expected jobs of about 20 for the 106,000-square-foot building and about 50 for the 570,000-square-foot building, with a cited wage level of $17.50 an hour. Several members questioned the wage figure as low and urged indexing or CPI adjustments to reflect cost-of-living changes. "At the very least...we at least need to do that every year," one member said, urging an annual CPI adjustment to the wage target.

The board also asked for a clearer demonstration that the jobs would go to Forest Park residents. The developers said prior practice has been to require job fairs and annual reporting and that abatements have clawback provisions if agreed targets are not met; Ed noted one tenant, Ocado, missed job goals in prior years and paid back part of the abatement before later meeting targets.

No final action was taken on the abatement requests. The board’s staff and the developer agreed to return in November with a side-by-side comparison of the two buildings, industry-standard wage data and proposed clawback terms for review and a possible vote.

The meeting then moved toward a short executive session on personnel, litigation or real estate matters.