Door-to-door campaign for Karcher Artspace

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The Illinois Housing Development Authority awarded a $9.3 million grant to convert the nine-story Karcher Hotel building, located at 405 Washington Street in Waukegan, into 36 lofts through the nonprofit Artspace Projects Inc. | Ryan Pagelow~Sun-Times Media

Updated: June 8, 2011 4:46AM

Volunteers plan to start a door-to-door campaign this weekend to help put a dent in the private-sector money needed to complete the proposed renovation of the Karcher Hotel on Washington Street.

Waukegan Main Street executive director Violet Ricker said around 30 volunteers from her organization, Waukegan High School and St. Martin de Porres High School will visit residences in the 6th and 7th wards during the first of four scheduled Saturdays intended to cover the entire city.

“We’re going to ask everybody in Waukegan for $5,” Ricker said. “We’re hoping to make this more of a grass-roots, community-based project.”

The final funding component of the proposed $12.5 million renovation by Artspace Projects Inc. is $500,000 in “private philanthropic sources,” according to a case for support posted by the organization at artspacewaukegan.org.

Artspace Director of Property Development Heidi Kurtze told the City Council in late February that the funding gap was between $450,000 and $200,000. On Thursday, Ricker reported that $65,000 is in hand and another $150,000 has been pledged from foundations and corporations.

Ricker also said Thursday that the money from the capital campaign is “coming in little by little. We’re trying to get some big donors and corporations to give us $1,000 or $5,000 at a time, and it’s going, but it’s going slow.”

She added that the volunteers on Saturday will be wearing custom t-shirts and will have flyers detailing the Karcher Lofts project, an approach that she said is designed to both educate residents who are unaware of the effort and reassure potential donors about the legitimacy of the campaign.

Artspace has already secured $9.23 million in low-income tax credits from the Illinois Housing Development Authority, $550,000 from downtown-redevelopment sales tax revenue, and $1.7 million in tax-increment financing over 20 years.

The proposal calls for 36 live/work units for artists and 2,400 square feet of commercial/retail space in the 83-year-old Karcher, which has been boarded up since a December 1984 fire.

“Artspace projects pay taxes, operate in the black (and) require no ongoing philanthropic support,” the project outline states. “All Artspace projects are structured to be financially self-sustaining. This is chiefly because our business model does not rely on borrowing beyond a modest first mortgage that can be amortized by tenant rents.”