Tinley Park officials feel much more confident in their choice of a developer to build a hotel and convention center.
The complex is part of a plan for a 91-acre tax increment financing district south of 183rd Street between Oak Park and Harlem Avenues. Plans also include retail development, plus about 300 town homes.
Trustees have been leaning toward Jerry Stillman of Mid-Continent Construction to build the facility, but questions about his past money woes caused second thoughts.
“Our comfort level with Stillman is definitely increasing,” Mayor Ed Zabrocki said last week.
Stillman has said financial troubles in the late 1980s caused him to sell off Holiday Inns in Crystal Lake and Matteson, as well as a partially developed commercial park in Matteson and a Hampton Inn in Michigan.
However, he said those problems are over, noting he has built restaurants for national companies in several states, plus a new Holiday Inn in Bolingbrook.
Stillman apparently has allayed trustees’ concerns about his ability to secure financing for the project by giving them recent letters from two financial institutions stating they are willing to provide him with monies needed for future development.
While one letter specifically mentioned the hotel and convention center, Trustee Pat Rea said, the other did not, and officials have given Stillman until Tuesday to provide such assurance from that institution.
Rea said Stillman also must provide a marketing study on the hotel; environmental and engineering analyses of the site; and secure the appropriate government licenses.
