Over the past decade, the University of Illinois Chicago has leased storefronts in its University Village Maxwell Street to a private preschool.
Under Illinois law, the university is supposed to tell the Cook County assessor’s office about any new tenants. That’s to help ensure that tenants, like the University Village Montessori School, that lease and operate on government property get billed every year for property taxes — money that, in Chicago, largely goes to the Chicago Public Schools and city government.
