Business & Tech
Downtown Developers Eye Utility Wires - And County Loan
Yorkville city leaders backtrack after state says burying downtown utility wires not eligible for county revolving loan fund.
Yorkville can't borrow money from the county to bury the utility wires strung along the municipal parking lot near Cobblestone Bakery and Bistro, City Administrator Bart Olson said in a memo.
"The various service lines and transformers appear to be several decades
old, and in various states of disrepair," Olson wrote in a memo last month to City Council members. "Besides the potential for service issues, the equipment does not match the aesthetics of the surrounding downtown area."
City leaders had been exploring borrowing $250,000 from the county's $1.9 million revolving loan fund, which provides loans to local businesses and government to create or retain local jobs. The project, requested by Imperial Investments, could be covered by the city's tax increment financing district money, but the downtown TIF fund presently doesn't have enough money for it, Olson wrote last week in a memo.
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So, city leaders figured they could borrow the money from the county, and repay the loan as property taxes associated with downtown improvements trickled into the city's downtown TIF fund, Olson said. Only, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity indicated the utility project wasn't eligible for that type of loan, Olson said.
"We will be discussing other revolving loan fund projects with interested developers and businesses and the County, and will report back to the Economic Development Committee or City Council when we have an acceptable project," Olson told City Council members.
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The city's application for a revolving loan fund was just in the earliest stages. Representatives had been expected to discuss it at the county board's Economic Development Committee meeting on Sept. 28, committee chairman Dan Koukol said.
"We want them to explain to us the whole project," said Koukol, a county board member. "That's what my committee wants."
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