ChicagoClout

Hired Truck giant ready to roll on Bridgeport homes November 20, 2009 BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com Former Hired Truck kingpin Michael Tadin is spreading his development wings in his native Bridgeport neighborhood, even as the housing boom there and elsewhere is going bust. "There's nothing booming anywhere. I guess we know something nobody else knows," Tadin said Thursday. River Bend Real Estate Investment LLC, a company Tadin co-owns with his son, has requested a zoning change to build 28 single-family homes with detached, two-car garages in the 2800 block of South Hillock. The riverfront industrial site once housed Holsum Bread. It's not their first foray into residential development in Bridgeport, where Tadin and his friend Mayor Daley were born and raised. In 2005, Tadin and his son built and sold town houses in the 500 block of West 33rd Street. The following year, they put up 39 more in the 3700 block of South Sangamon, a site that once housed the Wexler Meat factory. Only half of those town homes have sold. Development in Bridgeport, birthplace of Chicago mayors past and present, was booming for years because of demand for housing close to downtown jobs. Old industrial buildings were converted to lofts. Developers scoured side streets for lots suitable for new homes. That has slowed to a crawl during the prolonged recession that has dried up financing, shrunk the pool of home buyers and prompted a wave of foreclosures. But Tadin Sr. remains bullish on Bridgeport. "It's gonna take a long time to accomplish the next phase, but we've already made the investment. We've owned the land for two years, and we're willing to go forward," he said. "It's not like we're gonna start great guns. We'll start slow, build so many at a time, and take a chance. If it doesn't turn around, every one of us is in trouble," he said. Tadin is the perennial city trucking magnate whose $1.25 million loan to a security company co-owned by Ald. Patrick Huels (11th) forced the 1997 resignation of Daley's former City Council floor leader. Tadin's trucking company had received a $1.1 million city subsidy with Huels' help. Tadin was the undisputed king of Chicago's Hired Truck program, emerging from the pack, even after City Hall accused the company of overbilling and agreed to spread the wealth to other firms. The program was disbanded in 2005 after the Chicago Sun-Times disclosed how politically connected companies -- some with ties to organized crime, others masquerading as minority- and women-owned businesses -- were paid to do little or no work. The Hired Truck scandal resulted in dozens of indictments and convictions and branched out into city hiring. Two months ago, a company owned by Michael Tadin Jr. was accused of stealing water from a city fire hydrant -- without a permit and without a device to prevent construction debris from contaminating Chicago's water system. The younger Tadin called it all a "misunderstanding." He said he was a "sub to a subcontractor" on the street resurfacing project in the 2100 block of North Clybourn and he "thought it was the general contractor's responsibility to get these permits."