Editorial: Rockford's version of the Mag Mile is thriving. A TIF worked wonders for it.

Chicago Tribune

30-03-2025

One of Illinois' biggest little cities has a version of Chicago's Magnificent Mile shopping hub, with a few notable differences.
You won't find standalone boutiques for Gucci, Rolex or Tiffany in Rockford's proudly blue-collar Miracle Mile. The anchor tenants include a bowling alley, a Dollar General and a tattoo parlor or two. But there's something else shoppers won't find, either: A steep retail vacancy rate, such as the once-unimaginable 26% of empty space on the Mag Mile.
Rockford's Miracle Mile shows what a TIF can do when it's used as intended. A stretch of the city that two decades ago suffered from blighted buildings and vacant land has slowly recovered with assistance from this tax increment financing district, while staying true to its roots. There's nothing gentrified, Disney-esque or foppish about the Miracle Mile, which is one reason why it works for Rockford.
Its vacancy rate? Less than 10%.
For Miracle Mile merchants who gathered at Don Carter Lanes earlier this month to celebrate their TIF's 20th anniversary, any talk about how TIFs could be abused was beside the point. 'They worked for us,' said Brad Sommer, general manager of the bowling alley, which got help from the TIF to fund a facelift and renovation. 'It allowed for businesses to remodel and beautify. It has a snowball effect.'
As many Chicagoans can attest, TIFs don't always go right. In fact, the city has a history of TIF abuse. TIFs don't lend themselves to sweeping conclusions. They're potentially aldermanic and mayoral slush funds that can be raided for pet projects. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need TIFs at all — economic growth would be organic. But here we are, and the reality of Chicago's economy, however, often requires creative tools to encourage investment. Here's how TIFs work.
TIFs are an economic development tool designed to fight blight and disinvestment. They work by capturing property tax revenue to subsidize improvements within a targeted area. Chicago is dotted with TIFs that divert tax dollars from local public services such as schools, parks and libraries. Unfortunately, politicians can take advantage of the resulting slush funds for projects that have nothing to do with fighting blight.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley was the king of TIFs, using them in wealthy areas, including downtown, to pump tax money into private developments that didn't really need it. This page has repeatedly warned against the perils of mayors and aldermen using TIF funds to butter up well-connected real estate developers.
In more recent years, TIFs have garnered headlines more as a way to plug deficits than to grease development. Mayor Brandon Johnson has declared record TIF surpluses in each of his first two years for exactly that reason, and it won't be a surprise if he does the same thing later this year with what surely will be yet another substantial deficit.
Still, it would do us well to remember that TIFs retain their usefulness. Exhibit A: Rockford's Miracle Mile.
It's no secret that Rockford has faced hard times in its modern history. The Rust Belt collapse of the early 1980s wiped out much of its traditional manufacturing base. The Great Recession made Rockford ground zero for underwater mortgages, draining wealth from a city that could ill afford it.
These days, Rockford has staged a comeback. In 2024, its metropolitan area chalked up the largest annual decrease in unemployment of any city in Illinois. Its housing market has rebounded. Another huge plus is on the way nearby, as automaker Stellantis works to relaunch the idled Belvidere assembly plant.
That investment alone is expected to create a slew of good-paying jobs, which will help to support Rockford merchants such as Patricia Drewelow, whose House of Books recently got city encouragement to move into a spacious new Miracle Mile site near the bowling alley. The location was previously a long-gone insurance brokerage, and each of the individual offices now has a theme based on the books for sale inside, such as 'Mystery,' 'Religion,' and 'Kids.'
'I love it here,' Drewelow said, as she showed off each department.
Rockford Ald. Frank Beach, who has represented the Miracle Mile for the past four decades, said he believes TIFs should get more respect. When the city launched its Miracle Mile TIF, he said, 'We were all looking for ways to help the businesses.' Had nothing been done for the area, it would have kept deteriorating, he said, and TIFs were 'one of the only ways we could fund development.'
It took time for the clean-up campaigns, sidewalk repairs, new facades, safety lighting, trees, bushes and security cameras to have an effect, Beach recalled, and a shooting at the bowling alley that claimed three lives in 2020 was a tragic setback for the district.
Today the Miracle Mile has become a staging area for popular events, and a spot where cars that used to zoom past with the doors locked on Rockford's State Street now turn into busy parking lots to patronize the merchants. The temptation to continue draining the TIFs to help cure Chicago's structural deficits is strong; Rockford is a stark example of the potency TIFs retain to spur growth and development.