The Village of Villa Park was so hard hit in the Depression that, like a lot of other towns, it had to default on its special assessment bonds, and it got a bad credit rating as a result.
So the big Ovaltine plant, around which Villa Park grew up, on more than one occasion paid its taxes early to help the village through financial hard times, according to Lawrence Kenyon, a village trustee and former two-time village manager there.
In those pre-television days, it was a rare American home with children who hadn`t at least once tried a bottle of the vitamin-and-mineral -laced product called Ovaltine. Ovaltine`s virtues were broadcast five days a week on such popular children`s radio programs as ”Little Orphan Annie” and
”Captain Midnight.”
For Wander Co., then the manufacturer of Ovaltine, business was good at the only Ovaltine plant–in Villa Park–where at one time about 300 people were employed. The firm had been in the village almost since the birth of the town.
Ovaltine came to the United States and Villa Park in 1917, two years after the village was incorporated.
At that time Ovaltine maintained homes for some of its employees, and there are those who think they remember having heard of a company-owned store too.
But the long Ovaltine-Villa Park relationship will end in a few weeks, according to executives of Ovaltine`s present owner. The plant will be shut and all operations transferred to a modern facility in Minneapolis.
Ovaltine is now a part of Sandoz Nutrition Corp., a subsidiary of the diversified Swiss firm Sandoz Ltd. The subsidiary was formed in the late 1960s, when Wander was bought by Sandoz, and now includes what were Chicago Dietetic Supply Co. of La Grange and Delmark Co. of Minneapolis.
Walter Rohmann, Sandoz vice president for personnel in Minneapolis, said Ovaltine was created in Switzerland in 1904 and, though it has competitors in Europe, is ”a unique product” in the U.S.
The rambling Ovaltine plant is tucked away in east-central Villa Park, just off Villa Avenue on a 15-acre site that greets visitors with a graceful red-brick arch at its entrance on ”Ovaltine Court.”
Kenyon, who served 12 years as village manager in his two terms and was elected to the village board in April, said he lived half a block from the Ovaltine factory years ago and remembers it as ”always such a quiet neighbor. Occasionally in summer on Sunday evening they cleaned the vats and you could smell the chocolate–but they never made any noise.”
While he was village manager, Kenyon recalled, Ovaltine agreed to pay for the cost of manufacturing the village vehicle stickers because the board put
”The Home of Ovaltine” on them. And it was during his tenure that the name of the street in front of the plant was changed to Ovaltine Court, he said.
The 100 or so employees left there have known about the closing of the aged plant for a long time and have made plans accordingly. Fewer than 10 percent of them were offered jobs in the Minneapolis plant, and most of them accepted.
But almost no planning for the closing and what will happen to the property has been done by the village. Trustees voted last week, over the objections of Village President Douglas Brandow, not to commission a feasibility study of uses for the Ovaltine property.
The trustees said the money would be wasted and the information a study would produce can be obtained free from any developer interested in the property. Brandow has appointed four committees of residents to look into the best use of the site.
The Ovaltine property produces about $56,000 a year in real estate taxes, of which Villa Park gets about $12,000, according to Village Manager Kevin O`Donnell.
Brandow and others want to do as well or better with whatever follows Ovaltine on the site. They would like a sales-tax-producing retail development or a commercial development, which pay higher taxes than residential developments. But the only proposal they have is that of Amli Realty Co., Chicago, which wants to build apartments.
The ambiguous feelings of the village board on the matter are summed up by Trustee Paul Hyde, who said: ”I do not want to see Amli discouraged; it`s all we`ve got in hand. But I`d hate to get pushed into something.”
Trustee Thomas King said he doesn`t have enough informatiom from Amli to know what the development`s effect would be on police and fire services and what the street, curb and sidewalk repairs Amli wants would cost and who would pay for them.
Sandoz`s Rohmann said that Ovaltine employees who are not staying with the firm ”have received a liberal severance arrangement” and that a federally funded retraining program has been operated for them at the College of Du Page.
A College of Du Page official said it is anticipated that about 40 Ovaltine employees will be involved.
Though the consumption of milk is down, according to Rohmann, Ovaltine sales are ”comfortable,” though he wouldn`t specify what they are.
Sandoz hired Podolsky & Associates, a Rosemont-based realty firm, to find a buyer for the Ovaltine property. Richard Levy of Podolsky said a sales contract is being negotiated for the property with Amli Realty, which wants to build 320 apartment units there, preserving the flavor of the plant by keeping the archway, smokestack, water tower and most of the structures, except some of the smaller buildings and the silos.
Patrick Fox, project developer for Amli, says his firm plans to convert the main factory into 170 loft-type apartments and build 150 apartments on the vacant 14 acres at the plant.
In addition, Amli might build 10,000 to 15,000 feet of retail space on Villa Avenue north of the Ovaltine plant.
The firm has offered $1.6 million for the site and plant and wants the village to fix the nearby curbs, sidewalks and streets, some of which are the worst in the village, he said.
The finished project will be a $20 million investment, and Amli would strive to keep the historic character of the Ovaltine factory, even to the extent of applying for National Historic Register designations for the area and nearby retail buildings, Fox said.
