A village grant will help pay for upgrading two Skokie industrial buildings and allow a business to manufacture foldable gift boxes, under action approved earlier this month by the Skokie Village Board.
Skokie Village Manager John Lockerby said Mark McCracken, owner of Skokie-based P.S. Greetings and Chicago-based Fantus Paper Products, recently expanded his product line to include the foldable gift boxes.
“Recently, he secured a contract with Walmart to produce 55 million gift boxes for the 2018 holiday season,” Lockerby said.
Under the village’s rehab grant program for businesses inside a tax increment finance zone, McCracken will receive up to $100,000 to help with building improvements at 4820 Searle Parkway and 4901 Main St.
Trustees approved the funding at the May 7 meeting.
McCracken plans on investing $1.2 million to $2.4 million in the properties, Lockerby said.
Skokie Economic Development Specialist Leslie Murphy and Economic Development Manager Len Becker said “the vast majority” of foldable gift boxes have been produced overseas.
“This opportunity is part of the retailer’s efforts to reshore production to the U.S. in conjunction with its $50 billion ‘Buy American’ campaign,” they said in a report to the Village Board.
McCracken told trustees during the meeting that manufacturing in the United States has been a challenge.
“We’ve been continually losing business to China for years and years,” he said. “(The product) is probably almost exclusively made overseas so this is a major endeavor to bring this back and ‘reshore’ these jobs.”
Murphy said the new business is expected to add at least 35 manufacturing and related jobs with scheduled increases over the next few years.
Under McCracken’s production plans, the Searle Parkway building will be used for production while the Main Street building is pegged for storage and overflow production needs.
Total improvements to the buildings for this year are expected to total $550,000 with investments through 2020 potentially worth $2.4 million, according to village officials.
The approved grant comes from Skokie’s Facade Assistance Program, which allows property owners and tenants to recover 50 percent of the cost of a complete facade or site renovation — capped at $100,000 for a single building.
“As the initial estimate cost of improvements for Mr. McCracken total $550,000, he is eligible to receive the maximum reimbursement grant of $100,000,” Lockerby said.
Village officials said the properties were purchased in 2003 for $3.3 million, two years before the facade grant program was created.
Since then, village leaders said, McCracken has invested more than $640,000 into the facilities.
McCracken said the Searle Parkway building has been primarily used for specialized gift card production and warehousing through the end of 2017. The Main Street building has two existing tenants and was targeted for a local startup brewery that did not pan out, they said.
The planned physical improvements to the Searle Parkway building include exterior window replacement, new ventilation, roof repairs, parking improvements, masonry work, tuck pointing, loading dock upgrades and more.
McCracken said he plans to complete the majority of the initial exterior work by June 22.
Skokie mayor George Van Dusen said that he recently toured McCracken’s operations and asked him why he decided to produce gift boxes in Skokie.
McCracken had an opportunity to go elsewhere the mayor said he was told, but his father had always told him “Skokie was a great place to be.”
McCracken’s father, Oliver McCracken, was a longtime educator in Skokie. McCracken Middle School, one of three schools in Skokie School District 73.5, is named after him.
