Second Pritzker B&B Divides Neighbors, Aldermen

How many bed and breakfasts on one block is too many? Will a B&B effect neighboring property values? How much commercialization on Evanston’s lakefront is OK?

Those questions are at the heart of the debate over a proposed bed and breakfast at 1622 Forest Place. Through a limited liability company, Col. James Pritzker hopes to turn the 124-year-old lakefront home into a five-bedroom B&B—one home away from another bed and breakfast he owns that is already under construction, at 300 Church St. 

To do so, Pritzker’s company, Patriot Park LLC, must obtain a special use permit for the property. The city’s zoning board of appeals recommended that the city council reject Pritzker’s application this spring, on the grounds that the cumulative effect of two bed and breakfasts in such close proximity could have a negative impact on the neighborhood, and that it would not conform to the city’s lakefront master plan.

Members of the planning and development committee considered the special use permit Monday night, and ultimately voted 4-2 to send the application on to the city council for introduction. Lakefront aldermen Judy Fiske (1st Ward) and Melissa Wynne (2nd Ward) cast the no votes. The full council later voted 7-2 to introduce a motion that would reject the zoning board’s recommendation and approve the special use permit, with Fiske and Wynne again in opposition.

Dozens of people packed the planning and development portion of the meeting to show their support of the bed and breakfast, standing up at the request of Pritzker attorney Andrew Scott. Neighbors who spoke during the hearing, however, were divided in their opinions on how a second bed and breakfast would impact the area near the lakefront. 

“We do believe that this will help restore Evanston and help add value to the surrounding properties—and hopefully increase the economic benefit to the community,” said Bethany Collins, who lives directly behind the proposed bed and breakfast on Judson.

Jan Halperin, director of development at the Evanston History Center, told the council that her organization supports the project because it could bring economic benefits from tourists interested in learning about a historic home and a historic neighborhood.

“Cultural heritage tourism is on the rise in the United States, increasing about 5 percent per year,” Halperin said. “We welcome the opportunity to partner with historic bed and breakfasts and open our doors to their guests.” 

She also praised Pritzker’s generosity to the History Center and to the community through grants and donations. 

Evanston architect Paul Janicki, who is designing both bed and breakfasts, said he had recently visited several college campuses on the East Coast with his sons, including Dartmouth, Cornell and Princeton. In each town, his family stayed at a bed and breakfast. 

“Everywhere I went there were beautiful historic districts with beautifully maintained houses and there were bed and breakfasts almost next to each other, everywhere on the same block,” he said. “There’s no reason why Evanston shouldn’t have the same opportunities these other beautiful communities have. “

Several neighbors, however, said that two bed and breakfasts sandwiched around one house would fundamentally change the character of the block on Forest Place. 

“Two bed and breakfasts two doors apart will certainly have a negative cumulative effect,” said David Reynolds. “They will commercialize one end of the block and preclude families from building the normal fabric of the neighborhood.” 

But commercial real estate appraiser Mary Linberger, who was hired by Pritzker to evaluate the property’s effect on nearby homes, said bed and breakfasts are “stealth” properties that “effectively function as single-family homes.” While Linberger said she could not find any comparable situations of two bed and breakfasts so close to each other in Evanston, she did look at a bed and breakfast located in a historic district in the Gold Coast, at 68 E. Cedar.

Linberger said two homes recently sold in the immediate vicinity of that bed and breakfast, one for $2.5 million in 2007 and the other for $3.1 million in April 2013. When she contacted the brokers for both sales, neither could identify any impact, according to Linberger.

“The basic message they came back with was, nobody noticed it was there,” she said. 

Representing the first ward where the bed and breakfast would be located, Ald. Judy Fiske said she had major concerns about the long-term impacts of Pritzker acquiring property in the area. Fiske said he owned four properties in the first ward and had just acquired a fifth on Lake Shore Boulevard, in the third ward.

Asked what would become of those properties, Pritzker attorney Andrew Scott said they would be rented as single-family homes. But Fiske said that was the same answer city officials had heard when they’d asked about 1622 Forest Place when Pritzker was submitting a special use permit for his first bed and breakfast at 300 Church St. in 2011. Scott vowed that, at the time, Pritzker had no intention to construct a bed and breakfast. But Fiske was not convinced.

“What assurance can you give to the neighborhood other than your statement here tonight?” she said.

Fiske also said she was concerned that Pritzker was land-banking in a small, single family home neighborhood, and compared it to her ward’s relationship with Northwestern University.

“This is, again, a situation where we have a very, very wealthy property owner,” she said. “Two special uses in a block that is five houses long is a significant tipping point for that block.”

Ald. Don Wilson (4th Ward) said people were right to have concerns about the impact of multiple bed and breakfasts popping up in one neighborhood, and the impact a business operated by a billionaire would have on other competitors with shallower pockets. However, he said, he believed the neighborhood had not yet reached that tipping point.  

Wilson moved to send the motion to the city council for consideration, drawing applause from the audience. Council members voted to introduce it later that same evening with little discussion.