The First Ten Years at the Illinois Facilities Fund - IFF

largest single-payment grant in memory. Logue linedup the Illinois Development Finance Authority (IDFA)to issue the bonds and Christine Kelly of William Blair& Company to sell them. “We call this type of deal a ‘storybond’ because it doesn’t carry a AAA rating,” said Kelly.“You have to tell the story to sell it.” With equity from theTrust and other foundations plus a $1 million IDFA loanas a reserve, Kelly told a story that had the IFF as its institutionalanchor. It sounded good to money market fundsthat could use a 12-year stream of 7.4% interest, and theybought the $12.73 million package. It was enough to start.Ready, set, buildChild care agencies were eager to get involved with aprogram that would build them a brand new facility;it was up to the IFF and DCFS to select the agencies thathad the management savvy and experience to handlea major expansion. A screening committee reduced44 applicants to 21. Site visits whittled the list to 14.Then a fresh team of national experts spent four days ina Printers Row hotel to pick the seven finalists.With money and partners in place, architects JonathanBoyer and Heidren Hoppe upped their pace, shuttlingamong the agencies to hammer out design details.The IFF recruited a blue-ribbon construction team,including Teng & Associates for engineering, Stein &Company to manage budget and construction, and PepperConstruction as general contractor for six of the sites.For the partner agencies, the IFF organized a four-weekmini-business school to prepare them for opening day,when budgets and staff would be far bigger, withmanagement challenges to match.Construction proceeded like it always does: anendless series of small setbacks, detours, meetings andbudget discussions, including some hard-foughtbattles over amenities like extra drinking fountains thatJonathan Boyer and the child care agencies had toultimately give up. Boyer remembers some “very darkdays” when he feared the designs would be compromised,but Carol Rubin, while pressing relentlessly to keepthe project on time and budget, cultivated a good-naturedrelationship among team members. Stein contributed“value engineering” that protected elements like finemillwork by shaving costs elsewhere. Pepper Constructioncame through with high-quality work that could stand upto a daily beating. The child care agencies were gracefulabout cutbacks and dug around for other resources.The give and take “gave almost a spiritual quality to theresulting buildings,” remembered architect Hoppe,a sentiment shared later by teachers in the classrooms.7273