Yorkville aldermen have set as their top goals for the coming year to facilitate downtown commercial redevelopment and attract manufacturing and industry.
The city council met recently for their annual goal-setting session and prioritized a list of items.
The city is moving ahead with a series of efforts related to downtown planning, including extending an existing tax increment financing district and creating a second one as a way to encourage developer investment, according to city documents.
Under a tax increment financing district, the property tax amount collected is essentially frozen at the time the district is created. As property values increase with development, the additional tax dollars are placed into a city fund to help finance improvements in the district.
City Administrator Bart Olson in a report to aldermen said a presentation is being prepared to explain the city’s vision with the TIF extension. The plan is to file a request for the extension with the state legislature in the spring.
The city council could vote to begin the process for a second TIF next month. It is proposed in the central downtown portion of the city near Route 47 and Van Emmon Street, an older area where interest to invest was slowed with the Route 47 widening project.
The original tax district downtown was established in 2006, just prior to the economic recession, according to city documents.
The city is in the process of hiring a consultant to create an overlay district, which would set standards for visual appearance, pedestrians and functionality of the downtown. The goal is to have the overlay district completed by the end of next summer.
Olson said the city also is focused on recruiting manufacturing and industrial development. Some of the efforts, he said, include the approval of an Enterprise Zone along the Eldamain Road corridor.
Olson said while the city was not successful in landing the Archer Daniels Midland Company project, it did gather useful information in talks with Nicor, ComEd and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad about infrastructure that will be useful in recruiting other prospective companies.
ADM eventually decided on expanding its mill facilities in Mendota.
The city is looking into how the city could be eligible for a BNSF industrial site certification program that allows for services to business parks along the rail lines.
Staff has suggested marketing the Eldamain Road area, after extending city water and sewer there, to prospective businesses.
“We know it would cost $5 million to extend water and sewer utilities. We can have conversations at the committee level to figure out how comfortable people are with speculation building. It’s a way to attract manufacturing and industrial,” Olson said.
Ald. Joe Plocher said he’d like to see this kind of development “become our first priority. Manufacturing and industry is altogether different from residential. These are your big money-makers,” he said.
Ald. Chris Funkhouser added, “When we talk about revenue growth, this is it. There are communities that abate the residential tax because they have manufacturing and industrial.”
Yorkville also is continuing to plan for Riverfront development and recruiting a grocery store on its southern boundary. Discussions are underway with a potential restaurateur to demolish a single-family home at 104 N Bridge St. and build a 12,000-square foot restaurant and banquet hall.
The developer is seeking a variance and a public-private partnership concerning parking improvements to nearby Ron Clark Park. Under the proposal, the city would construct a new parking lot on or adjacent to Clark Park and permit the developer to use the parking during designated hours.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for the Beacon-News.
