The Minonk City Council listened to a proposed development plan north of Minonk at last Monday night's council meeting. Victoria Marquis, property owner and principal of the Calista Group, and Michael Svoboda,of CB Richard Ellis, presented their plans to develop 136 acres along I-39 and 177 acres that are 2 miles north of Minonk along Route 251 on the east side.
Ms. Marquis said one of their most important goals is to insure that Minonk achieves its’ economic goals. She added , "The actual building project that we are presenting tonight will only be a “win-win” as far as we are concerned when Minonk achieves what it wants as well as what we want. There is no project if we are not both winning what we want."
Marquis stated the discussions that they want to have in the future with the Mayor and Council has to do with:
• Jobs
• Enhance economic impact….retail sales, real estate, etc
• Substantial increase to local real estate taxes
She further stated that her project will not succeed if these goals are not met.
To accomplish their goals the developers will submit two documents for feedback and approval in January 2008. The first document is a Pre-Development Agreement and the second one is a Pre-Annexation Agreement. The Pre-Development Agreement will outline 5 important parameters to the project:
• Type of industrial development allowed (use and building type)
• Job creation threshold to meet (number of jobs you would like to see created to allow project to go forward)
• Tax revenue threshold to meet
• Infrastructure overview (not to build until site is developed) {what would be required in the way of improvements….water, sewer, etc}
• Other Minonk concerns as expressed by City
None of the infrastructure would be built until there are tenants for the site and development has started. Marquis said that the Pre-Development Agreement is a broad brush stroke document, but is intended to provide a high degree of transparency between Minonk and the owners of the property so that everyone is working together and understanding what is allowed and what is not allowed.
On the Pre-Annexation Agreement, Marquis said that this land is not part of Minonk today, but technically in Dana. The developers are not asking to annex it today, but would only actually annex when they have signed a lease agreement with a corporation.
Marquis said the estimated tax base is $278,000,000 in 15 to 30 years of absorption on 1,000 acres of development. She currently owns two parcels of land, however, she said there are some other parcels that they are looking at and there is also the Waste Management parcel of 600 acres which comes to roughly 1,000 acres. She added, "We are looking to do a very large project in Minonk and the attention grabber to large corporations is the size of the acreage that we have to offer. And so as we market the site, we much as possible would like to market a mega site. That is how we came up with the figure of 278 million dollars."
Michael Svoboda talked about the I-39 Corridor and what the importance of it is and how they have positioned this property as part of the I-39 Corridor. He showed a map of the I-39 Corridor which encompasses 10,000 square miles and spans 165 miles from Janesville, Wisconsin on the north to Bloomington, Illinois on the south and 65 miles from Sycamore, Illinois on the east to Sterling, Illinois on the west. Minonk is at the south end of this corridor.
Svoboda said that the corridor is pretty strong from Rochelle to Rockford and the Janesville area is very active. He stated. "At the south end we have a distinct position with two specific advantages for corporations looking to locate on the I-39 Corridor and these two advantages are as follows. One, being able to go to Indianapolis without having to go through Chicago and two, yet being able to access the intermodal at Rochelle and the air mobile at Elwood and subsequently Will County as well as good access to the Central Illinois economy made up of Bloomington-Normal, Peoria, Decatur, and Springfield. The south end of I-39 is very attractive on a half national basis."
Svoboda said today there is much more interest in the LaSalle-Peru area and a number of national developers has taken positions in that location at the intersection of I-80 and I-39. He said they are positioning ourselves for the advantages of the south end of the corridor.
The Marquis property of 300 acres will take about 2 ½ million square feet of total development space and it will take at least 15 years to achieve that according to Svoboda. He noted the advantages of the Marquis site.
• We have positioned it as a mega site.
• South end of the I-39 Corridor
• Gateway to Central Illinois dynamic economy
• Easy access to Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis: 4 Interstates (I-39, I-80, I-55, I-74)
• Lower cost alternative on I-39 at same or better building quality.
Ms. Marquis said they will be submitting the Pre-Development and Pre-Annexation agreements for review by the City in January 2008. She said that the objective tonight is to present a public forum. She said they want to be as transparent as possible and answer questions from the public. She added, "This is a potential project being presented because we do not have a corporation to announce to you tonight. We are marketing the site and talking to corporations and there is real live interest in the site. We want to keep things moving forward so we have a few tracks going at once, including this public process. The next two steps are the pre-development and pre-annexation agreements."
In response to public comments, Ms. Marquis said that the land has been in her family for 5 generations. She added, "Our proposal is a radical departure from farm land to do state of the art logistics and distribution, but I feel strongly that it is an excellent logistics location." She said that it is important to optimize the value of a family asset and today this land is worth more as a logistics and distribution site because of the strength of its location and proximity to four interstate highways and the demand at that location.
Mayor Koos said the City will follow the same template as with the race track when it comes to pre-annexation and pre-development agreements. The Mayor stated, "Their legal work will be submitted to our legal team and they will review it and we will review it. We will be in discussion back and forth through our legal teams." He added, "We have a local attorney, Ned Leiken, who is their attorney for this project."
Click here for a map of proposed development.
Sherry Stalter resigns as City Treasurer
Mayor Koos announced with regrets in accepting the resignation of our City Treasurer Sherry Stalter. Mayor Koos thanked her for her service and said "that it was a tough job and we were glad she was doing it and we will be looking for a new City Treasurer."
Fitness Center Closing
Mary Miles and Shauna Stillwell addressed the Council and said they were members of Champion Fitness and were notified a couple of weeks ago that it would be closing and that many people use the facilities that it provides. They further stated that they were at a loss of where to turn to and who to talk to, but they wanted a facility like this in Minonk.
Alderman Cunningham said they have begun a dialogue with Champion Fitness and Jeff Shade. He stated that they have talked about things the City can do and are hoping to put something together before they close the doors in January, but there are no promises.
Mayor Koos added that the Finance Committee is addressing this matter.
Mayor's Comments
• Thanked the Parade of Lights committee for a job well done for another excellent parade and a special thank you to Jack Jochums and John Oncken for their work with the parade.
• Reported that the City went under an inspection of water facilities by the EPA and the response letter back was favorable and thanked Charlie McGuire, Cary Nass, Jim Brown, and Ron McCurdy.
• Thanked Sherry Stalter for her service to the community.
• Announced that the City appreciation dinner for volunteers will be held on January 11 and January 18 at LaVon’s.