Tinaglia a good fit as Arlington Heights mayor

Jim Tinaglia, an architect with a long history of community service, was voted in as mayor of Arlington Heights this spring.

When people ask him what it’s like to be mayor, he says that he always tells them his job is 90% wonderful.

“People have been so respectful, decent, optimistic and kind,” Tinaglia says. “The 10 percent is the scary part because there are surprises here and there you have to be ready for. People get unhappy and there are situations that come up that you can’t plan for.”

It’s his job to be as level-headed, transparent and middle-of-the-road as possible, he explains.

“This role is non-partisan, we do not govern politically left or right, it’s purely about policy and what is the best solution for the most people for the most good of the community,” he says.

The most-talked about topic in Arlington Heights is the potential for the Chicago Bears to build a new stadium on the old site of the Arlington Park racetrack, which the team put in a purchase agreement for in 2021. Tinaglia says a slight majority of the residents who reach out to him about the project are excited and enthusiastic and around 40% say they are concerned with the consequences that might happen if it isn’t done right.

“I’m an architect and I have no interest in doing anything less than wonderful,” Tinaglia says. “I’d rather have it remain grass than have something half-baked built there.”

His four criteria for any stadium project are that it has to be safe, economically beneficial to the community, not intrusive to local traffic and not detrimental to the local infrastructure.

“If we handle all four of those things smartly, it does have a chance to be wonderful like the racetrack was in our community for 100 years,” Tinaglia says.

Tinaglia says he has spoken with top Bears representatives several times since the election about the stadium project.

“The Bears are really smart people and they have wonderful plans,” Tinaglia says.

Tinaglia, 63 years old, has been an Arlington Heights resident since 1972 and graduated from Arlington High School in 1980. After studying architecture in college and then serving as an apprentice, he started his own firm in 1991, operating out of an extra bedroom of his home.

His firm, Tinaglia Architects Inc., has grown over the decades and has been run out of the same office on Northwest Highway in Arlington Heights for 34 years.

Tinaglia’s foray into community service began through youth soccer.

“I went to my oldest daughters’ first practice and saw that the dad who was the coach didn’t know the first thing about the sport,” says Tinaglia, who played on Arlington Heights High’s first soccer team in the 70s. “I thought maybe I should help this guy and over the years I ended up coaching four different travel teams, all at the same time, and travelling to tournaments all over the Midwest.”

He says making friends with so many families in the community through soccer is how he got active in the community.

His first post in village government was on an advisory design commission created by former Arlington Heights mayor Arlene Mulder in 2002. From the start, the commission has been made up of local architects tasked with ensuring that proposals that come before them are in keeping with the community’s character.

Tinaglia says he enjoyed serving on the commission and was prepared to do it for a long time until he made an off-hand comment at a community Christmas party in 2012. At the partym he’d spotted then-mayor Arlene Mulder who had just announced she wouldn’t be seeking another term as mayor.

“I said ‘I always just imagined that when you didn’t want to be mayor anymore then I would be the mayor,’” Tinaglia recalls jokingly commenting. “She told me if you want to mayor then you need to get on the village board. And then the Christmas party turned into my campaign party.”

He ended up winning a seat on the board in 2013 and served three four-year terms. He was considering stepping away from village government until Tom Hayes, who served as mayor for the 12 years following Mulder’s tenure, said he was planning to retire.

Tinaglia says he asked his wife and kids about whether he should run for mayor and they were very supportive, especially considering the possibility of a Bears stadium project.

“My kids were like, ‘Dad, no one can do this better than you,” Tinaglia says.

Tinaglia is passionate about his Italian roots. His paternal grandfather immigrated to Chicago from Palermo in the 1910s, opening a tailor shop in the city’s Near North Side enclave known as Little Sicily. His father, Peter, was born in Chicago in 1918, the youngest boy in his family and the only one born in America.

Growing up it was a family joke that non-Italians pronounced their last name incorrectly, Tinaglia explains, including his mother, who is not of Italian heritage. He says he resolved when he went away to college that he would insist on his name being pronounced the Italian way, like his father’s family would.

When he’s not busy helping run Arlington Heights, Tinaglia plays guitar in a cover band called Exit 147, which he started three years ago with two of his sons.

“I’m the only old fart in the band,” Tinaglia says. “My one son is a drummer and the other one is a singer and we have a bunch of other great young musicians.”