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The common vision these municipalities share is to bring people and business back to the old downtown areas.
“It’s been a long process,” said Mayor Mark Eckert of Belleville. “It’s been a very cumbersome process. I really have to applaud the businesses for being so patient, but we’re getting the results that we expected. We’re getting a lot more interest in our downtown, and we’re becoming a destination again for the first time in years. We’re just picking up a lot of momentum.”
Eckert says the project started about a year and a half ago. It included widened sidewalks, new lamp posts, new roadway, new curb and gutter, new sidewalk level planter boxes and new banners. Sidewalk areas were expanded to allow room for sidewalk dining and the city worked with the Missouri Botanical Garden in the selection of plantings.
The original budget, Eckert says, called for the expenditure of about $4.6 million but the city ran into some surprises along the way as it tore up the old sidewalks.
“We found a large number of underground vaults under our sidewalks throughout East and West Main,” Eckert said. “There were coal shoots, loading bins, vegetable cellars and wine cellars. We ran into a variety of uses, and we ran into a variety of depths. We had stores with water seepage and we had some foundations that were in jeopardy that we had to shore up. We corrected all of that. That’s where the price tag for this time got a lot more expensive,” he added.
Funding for the project came from a variety of sources, according to Eckert. The area is both a special service area and a TIF district; money was provided by both of those sources. He says the city also received a grant from the state of Illinois and contributed money from its own capital bond fund.
“We all know that the core is very important to any city,” Eckert said. “We’re the [St. Clair] County seat; we’re the largest city in all of southern Illinois south of Springfield. We have two major hospitals and great schools and we know all this, but we also know that you have to pay attention to your downtown business district. I think this facelift has really given us a shot in the arm and a sense of renewal.”
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The city of Edwardsville had already created two TIF districts that focused on its downtown, but it added a third in March 2007. The North Main Street redevelopment project will replace aging infrastructure and extend the streetscape improvements all the way north to the intersection of Illinois Rtes. 143 and 159. The total cost is estimated at $9.6 million.
Last month, Granite City’s city council authorized the issuance of $11 million in TIF bonds for projects in its central business district. The budget includes a performing arts center to provide a venue for movies, stage plays, lectures and other events. The projected cost of that is $4 million. A teen center is also on the drawing board with an estimated cost of $1 million, and $3.8 million in improvements will be made to the police department and fire house on Madison Avenue.
And late last month, the Collinsville City Council approved a final conceptual development plan and implementation strategy called A Vision for Downtown Collinsville. The plan sets out three different development areas stretching along Main and Clay Streets from St. Louis Avenue on the west to a block east of Vandalia.
The plan was prepared by Suttle Mindlin and Development Strategies and was based on market research that showed a need for residential development in downtown Collinsville, according to Paul Mann, community development and TIF director.
“Once you get the residential development here, that will help feed the rest of the area,” Mann said.
According to the plan, the west end will be developed as a garden district, a residential area with single family homes, attached single family homes and condominiums in a heavily landscaped setting.
The middle portion would be the central business district with a focus on historic storefronts, mixed uses and the development of a major town square event space.
The third and easternmost of the areas would be a market district located around the newly rerouted Illinois Rte. 159. It would concentrate on new and renovated commercial buildings with off-street parking and a major retail anchor like a grocery store.
Mann says the next step is to publish a request for proposals and try to develop some interest from a developer in taking on either a piece of the project or the entire thing. He says the area is in the city’s TIF district and that TIF monies would be used to assist the development, but specifically how much or for what purposes will need to be determined once specific projects are identified.
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