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The Impact of Historic Tax Credit Investment in Illinois
The enabling legislation for both the Illinois Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program (IL-HTC) and the River Edge Historic Tax Credit Program (RE-HTC) establishes the collection of fees from projects that receive state tax credits and mandates that a portion of these fees be used to fund biennial economic-impact reports.
35 ILCS 31/10(c) establishes that issuance fees from IL-HTC projects are deposited into the Historic Property Administrative Fund (HPAF). 35 ILCS 31/20(c) requires that moneys in the HPAF be used to fund IL-HTC economic impact reports and suggests their contents.
35 ILCS 5/221(b-1) establishes that issuance fees from RE-HTC projects are deposited into the HPAF. 35 ILCS 5/221(c-1) requires that moneys in the HPAF be used to fund RE-HTC economic impact reports and suggests their contents.
2025 Economic Impact Report
2023 Economic Impact Report
The commissioning of the 2023 and 2025 economic impact reports adhered to current State of Illinois’ procurement policies. On April 20, 2022, IDNR issued a Request for Quote under Bid Solicitation number 22-422DNR-DIREC-B-28925 for the analysis of the impacts of the RE-HTC and IL-HTC programs from 2000 through 2022. PlaceEconomics, a private-sector firm with over thirty years’ experience in analyzing the economic impacts of historic preservation, was awarded the contract on June 23, 2022. Due to the success of the first Economic Impact REport (EIR), SHPO staff was authorized to contract directly with PlaceEconomics for the second report, and that contract was executed on August 18, 2024. From September 30 through October 3, 2024, SHPO staff and three PlaceEconomics staff visited several completed and ongoing IL-HTC and RE-HTC projects throughout the state and interviewed a variety of stakeholders, from mayors to residents, developers to small-business owners.
The SHPO’s Tax Incentives & Architecture Section administers the Illinois Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program (IL-HTC), the River Edge Historic Tax Credit Program (RE-HTC) and the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit (F-HTC)
