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It takes an unusual man to make escrow funny.

Zalman Alper was unusual.

Alper, for about 25 years the gatekeeper of the 770 acres of the Society of the Divine Word's Techny lands, died Nov. 1 at age 80. Last week, he was remembered with a plaque on the wall of the Techny Towers.

A lot of people at the Dec. 3 ceremony had stories, including his son Jonathan, his long-time assistant.

He said when a developer would balk at putting up cash in case his project failed, his dad always had an answer. The developer would be reminded it wasn't that long ago that the Society of the Divine Word Catholic missionary order farmed most of its land, and then he'd point at the builder's fancy plans for an office building or house.

"Another swine barn for Brother Matt (Zemel)," Jonathan Alper recalled his father saying. Zemel is a member of the Techny Land Committee that assesses development proposals.

"And then the guy would put up the money to tear it down," he said.

Zemel noted that Zalman Alper helped craft a very unusual deal for the order: developers were required to build on leased property, so the missionaries could control the land long after structures rose.

When builders worried about erecting houses on land they'd never own, Zemel said Alper would tell them, "We're going to evict you all at the end of 150 years.

"Then we'll make you sign another deal."

Diverse developments
Alper put his own stamp on Techny, from homes to Crate & Barrel headquarters to Five Seasons Sports Club to the Willow Festival shopping center. Nearly all of it was built of brick and lushly landscaped.

"He knew his stuff. He was good," said the Rev. Francis Kamp, who for years headed the land committee. "He had a big vision, and saw the whole picture."

Kogen-Zivin-Friedman Development, or its predecessors, had a hand in more than half of Techny's projects, and "A lot of people think he took it easy on us," Danny Zivin said. Shaking his head, Zivin told of the many hours he had spent arguing with Alper in his Loop office over some tiny facet of one project or another.

"He protected that property like it was his own."

Once negotiations over a particular piece of Techny property got serious, Alper would arrange for the developer to sign a "term sheet," a contract to negotiate on an exclusive basis as a project was planned, former Techny lawyer Guenther "Bud" Philipp said.

Once that term expired, however, if no extension was signed, Alper wouldn't let that builder continue to negotiate as others stepped up to make bids. He felt it was unfair.

"Il nava va," Alper would tell the developer, in Italian, Philipp said. "That ship has sailed."

He added, "It's too bad Zalman didn't get to see" developments rise on the last three relatively small Techny sites, Philipp said.

"But I'm sure he would say, 'Il nava va.'"

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