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Bedford Park - Clearing Industrial Association
5101 West 67th Street
Bedford Park, IL. 60638
708-496-0336
donna@bpcia.org
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President's Message
The Bedford Park Clearing Industrial Association (BPCIA) thanks you for making this another successful year. The mission of the BPCIA is to build a partnership of business professionals and government officials working together to protect and foster a healthy business climate through member education, networking events, business retention and planned expansion. Our meetings and events are held to help our members meet and network with other business people. The quarterly luncheons have great presenters with topics that are pertinent and timely to the business world. The golf outings give you the opportunity to bring clients, relax and perhaps do a little business on the course. We recently had our ninth Business Expo, which was a great place for businesses to showcase their product or service. At this time, I'd like to thank all of the sponsors, throughout the year, for helping to make our events the great successes they are. The board is in the process of planning for next year's meetings and events. If you have any suggestions, please send an email to
donna@bpcia.org or call 708-496-0336. We're always open to suggestions!
The BPCIA Board is proud to welcome its newest member from Hallberg Insurance, Sean O'Shea. Sean is a
Managing partner at Hallberg Financial, LLC, a division of Hallberg Insurance at 6640 S. Cicero in Bedford Park. Sean heads up the 401(K) and Pension Group, working alongside Hallberg Commercial's Group Health and Wellness professionals to design competitive benefits packages for employers and improving outcomes for their plan participants. Sean holds designations as a Certified Financial Planner
TM
Professional and Professional Plan Consultant
TM
. The family-owned Hallberg Insurance network of companies currently employ over 250 insurance professionals, the majority of which live in communities on the southwest side. Sean is a Palos Heights native, alumnus of Marist High School and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sean is the father of two, and currently resides in Oak Lawn.
I'd like to wish you a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends,
Cheryl Laska
BPCIA President
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Cook County approves $13 hourly minimum wage affecting suburbs
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Suburban Cook County has joined Chicago in adopting a $13 hourly minimum wage, a move critics say is better left to the state but proponents contend is a response to the state's inaction.
The Cook County Board voted Wednesday to gradually raise the minimum wage to $13 by July 2020, following the legislation's approval Tuesday by the board's Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.
The move, which comes more than a year after Chicago implemented the first phase of a minimum wage increase, adds Cook County to the growing list of government bodies seeking to help lift people out of poverty by raising the wages of the lowest-paid workers.
The first increase, to $10 an hour, takes effect July 1, 2017. The wage rises to $11 a year later and to $12 in July 2019. It hits $13 an hour in 2020, and subsequent annual increases will be at the rate of inflation, not to exceed 2.5 percent. The suburbs will be a year behind the city, which will reach $13 an hour by July 2019.
An amended version of the county bill removed provisions that increased the tipped minimum hourly wage by $1. According to the updated bill, tipped workers, who make $4.95 under Illinois law, will see their wages rise with the rate of inflation starting July 1, 2018, not to exceed 2.5 percent.
The law applies to the entire county, including unincorporated areas. Home-rule towns can vote to opt out of the increase, though that could exacerbate the patchwork of laws that critics say creates an uneven playing field between competing businesses in neighboring towns, said Mike Reever, vice president of government relations at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the county ordinance.
Several trade groups representing the retail and restaurant industries oppose the measure, saying businesses operating on 3 to 5 percent profit margins already are squeezed by a battery of cost increases. Among them are a federal rule extending overtime pay to millions more Americans that takes effect Dec. 1, and new city and county laws requiring all employers offer paid sick leave, beginning July 1.
Article written by: Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
Reprinted from The Chicago Tribune
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Business Expo - October 13
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On October 13th The BPCIA hosted its ninth Networking Business Expo at the Marriott Chicago Midway Hotel. The expo was co-sponsored by The Belt Railway of Chicago and The Midway Hotel Center. It was an excellent networking opportunity for the exhibitors and a wonderful way to showcase their business. We want to thank all the people for their raffle prize donations to help make the evening great! Southwest Airlines donated two tickets anywhere they fly and the lucky winner was Debra Caldwell from Costco Business Center. She was so excited... she plans to fly her daughter home for Christmas.
We especially want to thank the staff at the Marriott Chicago Midway, namely Jaimie Paquin & Michelle Pierce for tending to every detail, from room set-up to the wonderful array of food, and a lot of behind the scene work. They did a wonderful job... Thank you!
Below are some photos of the event:
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Area around Midway ready for retail takeoff - 65th & Cicero
The retail landscape near Midway Airport finally is starting to look up. A number of developments are breaking ground along Cicero Avenue, hoping to give people on the road to Chicago's No. 2 airport a reason to stay, shop or dine. The projects could change the Midway streetscape, which includes a plethora of shuttered buildings and vacant lots for sale along Cicero, for good. The catalyst may be Vib Chicago, an $8 million boutique hotel set to rise on the 1.1-acre site of a long-closed rental car facility at the southeast corner of Cicero and 65th Street, across from the Midway Hotel Center and just a few blocks south of the airport. The three-story, 74-room hotel is part of a new urban boutique offering from Best Western. The sale was a breakthrough for the dormant Midway market, said Fahim Lakhani, vice president of acquisitions at Chicago commercial real estate firm First Western Properties, which represented local hotel developer Amit Patel in the transaction. "The hotel project is benefiting from a property tax incentive, approved in March, which will save developers an estimated $466,000 over five years, the city said. Construction will be completed during the second half of 2017, according to Lakhani. Meanwhile, Lou Malnati's purchased a 16,000-square-foot former used car lot near the hotel development, with plans to open a 5,000-square-foot, full-service pizza restaurant by spring 2017. The chain adds about four locations a year, and had been scouting the Midway area for some time before settling on what it hopes will be a hot corner. The Vib already has spurred adjacent development. Lakhani sold the corner outlot to Panda Express, which is building a drive-through restaurant expected to open later this year. . Other major restaurant chains also are looking at nearby sites, Lakhani said. "The great part about this hotel is that it's going to be facing the street," Lakhani said. "The hotel complex that's already there is enclosed. You're not going to leave that complex necessarily to go out and visit these retailers. "Built on the site of a former Cracker Jack factory across the city border in Bedford Park, the Midway Hotel Center broke ground in 1988, with similarly high hopes for improving the neighborhood. The fenced 10-hotel complex - which last year added the Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway - has been much more of an island. The work outside Midway coincides with a $248 million renovation of the South Side airport. The plan includes more parking, a concessions upgrade and expansion, and a widening of the pedestrian bridge over Cicero Avenue to alleviate security line bottlenecks. Work on the project will begin next year and is expected to run through 2019, according to Chicago Department of Aviation spokesman Owen Kilmer.
By Robert Channick Chicago Tribune
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Bedford Park - Clearing Industrial Association
5101 West 67th Street, Bedford Park, IL. 60638
Phone: 708-496-0336 - Email: donna@bpcia.org - Website:
www.bpcia.org
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