Kane County Reporter

City of Aurora Fox Walk Overlay Review Committee met March 3.

Here is the minutes provided by the committee:

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Zine called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. and read the following:

On June 26, 2020, the Governor of Illinois issued a statewide disaster declaration related to public health concerns. As head of this body, I have determined that an in-person meeting or a meeting otherwise conducted in accordance with the Open Meetings Act is neither practical nor prudent because of the disaster. This meeting will be conducted by Internet teleconference without the physical presence of a quorum. Prior to the commencement of this meeting, all members of this body were verified and can see and hear one another.

I further find that the physical presence of members of the public is not feasible at this meeting due to the disaster, and more specifically, the practical difficulties associated with accommodating the public in an accessible hygienic location that allows for appropriate social distancing. Alternative arrangements have been made to allow the public to contemporaneously hear all discussion and roll call votes live on the City’s official website, on Facebook, and via Zoom teleconference. Notice of these arrangements have been given in accordance with the Open Meetings Act. The public may address this body consistent with the rules previously adopted and recorded and as adapted by Mayoral order.

Jill Morgan, Planner, is physically present at our regular meeting location as those terms are defined by Resolution R20-124.

All votes shall be conducted by roll call and a verbatim record of this meeting shall be made and maintained in accordance with the Open Meetings Act.

ROLL CALL

The following Committee members were present: Fernando Castrejon, Karen Christensen, Fawn Clarke-Peterson, Brian Failing, Jeff Palmquist and Charlie Zine. Clara Diaz called in and excused herself from the meeting.

OTHERS PRESENT

The following staff members were present: Jill Morgan, Ed Sieben, David Dibo, Jason Bauer and Sue Jackson.

Meeting Minutes

Review Committee

Others Present: None.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

21-0157 Approval of the FoxWalk Overlay District Design Review Committee on November 21, 2019.

A motion was made by Mr. Castrejon, seconded by Mr. Palmquist, that the minutes be approved and filed. The motion carried.

21-0158 Approval of the FoxWalk Overlay District Design Review Committee on December 18, 2019.

A motion was made by Mr. Palmquist, seconded by Mrs. Clarke-Peterson, that the minutes be approved and filed. The motion carried.

COA REPORT

21-0159 FoxWalk Certificate of Appropriateness Report (COA's Approved by Staff - Nov. 16, 2019-Feb. 28, 2021)

Mrs. Morgan said the COA report doesn’t have to be approved, so if there are any questions, I’m happy to answer.

Mr. Failing said I have more of a comment than a question. Thanks to Jill for answering a couple of questions I had on a few of the projects. There is kind of a question in looking at all of the items that were on the COA that were approved. How is staff getting the word out on the guidelines out to the downtown businesses? In the last week, I’ve noticed several projects that have been completed in the last couple of months that didn’t go through a COA, as well as had a business owner say they knew about the guidelines but they were too limiting so they just did the project without going through a COA. I saw one of the COA’s had been approved after a project was completed. I just wanted to know how we can get the word out there better to get the businesses aware.

Mr. Sieben said Brian, can I ask what type of projects you’ve seen just in general?

Mr. Failing said signs and awnings.

Mrs. Morgan said I would agree any maybe it’s this year that I’ve seen it more so. I know in our residential districts, we try to do mailings out to all the homeowners and I was thinking maybe that’s something we would want to do for our downtown as well because I agree. I feel like there’s maybe been change in ownerships and it is getting lost.

Mr. Sieben said Jill I would agree, maybe like we do for the Preservation Districts. We do a mailing for the FoxWalk.

Mrs. Christensen said if you guys go through the electronic files from back in the day, you’ll be able to find a brochure that was done in English and Spanish that went out regularly, like twice a year, to all the property owners and business owners of record to not only let them know about what the rules were, but also to explain financial programs that might be available to help them. You wouldn’t have to start from scratch. You could find something. I’m sure Ed has it in his file.

Mrs. Morgan said thanks Karen.

Mr. Failing said and if you guys would want to present at Aurora Downtown, Karen and I serve on the Board, so we’d be more than happy to connect you with Marissa to see if we can make that happen.

Mrs. Morgan said think that would be great. Thank you.

Mr. Failing said it is no one’s fault. So Aurora Downtown, we have been giving grants to businesses to complete projects and a few of the people or entities that we gave grants are some of the ones that aren’t following these procedures. So just to make sure everyone is doing the best they can.

There were no other questions on the COA report.

This COA Report was discussed and filed.

PUBLIC COMMENT

None.

AGENDA

21-0156 Certificate of Appropriateness for a concept plan for the City-owned open space commonly referred to as Skinny Park or Beilman Park located south of New York Street, west of Broadway Avenue and east of Water Street Mall (City of Aurora - 21-0156 / AU22/3-21.043-FCOA - TD - Ward

Mrs. Morgan said I’ll turn it over to David Dibo from our Mayor’s Office of Economic Development and Jason Bauer with our Engineering Department to kind of present that.

Mr. Bauer said I’ll pull up the plan view.

Mr. Dibo said thanks everybody for being here today. As we said, it is just going to be good to do this in person pretty soon. I’m really looking forward to it. As Charlie mentioned, we are here to request the Certificate of Appropriateness to approve the open space for Beilman Park or what is commonly known as the Skinny Park and create an attractive and inviting experience to the Water Street Mall. Specifically, we are asking you to support a 3 phase plan with the first phase construction to begin this spring. The allocation of funds for these improvements have been approved in the 2021 budget. The plan being discussed tonight is consistent with, and we believe will advance the goals of, the FoxWalk Overlay District as it relates to establishing a pedestrian friendly destination, and also specifically as it relates, and we speak about it in the memo, to Section 2 regarding alterations to existing structures and Section 8, specifications regarding public improvements. Jason is gong to take you through the details of the plan. I just want to mention a couple of things in general that might be important to note. Construction will begin, or could begin, with this approval in the spring and that is not tied to what happens to any future business, specifically what could occur at the building right adjacent to it to the south, 13 S. Broadway. Again, Jason will go through the details, but in general we’ve got a new walkway planned there with a brick ribbon, new landscaping, a center section, overhead string lighting and some other recreational elements that, again, Jason will get into more detail. The point that I want to make for the introduction is that this is independent of anything that might happen in Phases 2 or 3, which relates to a restaurant that is being planned for 13 S. Broadway. The second phase presupposes that a restaurant will go into the building, specifically on the east side of the building and have a connection with seating and so as you can see in the plan, I just want to make sure everybody understands that’s what’s envisioned for the second phase. Then for the third phase, it is more of a concentration to the entrance to the Water Street Mall or the west side of the building where it is envisioned a seating area over there and awning and so on.

Let’s go into some of the details with Jason and open it up for discussion.

Mr. Bauer said so going through it, as he said, starting with Phase 1, that would be this one that’s on the screen right now with Water Street Mall on the west, which is on the left hand part of the screen view and then Broadway would be the east. The building he was referring to that potentially might have the new development would be on the south of the bottom and then top is, I believe, 5 S. Broadway. As you stated, we would have a concrete walkway with brick ribbons, which would be consistent with both Broadway and Water Street Mall and the sections of concrete through Mundy and basically the entire downtown. The north side we would envision being landscaping.

We’ve talked about having some sort of themed artwork on the walls and we also have the same string lights over the top that would carry through basically to mimic what’s in Water Street Mall currently. As far as the other public spaces, as he mentioned in this first phase we would basically be getting everything ready for development, but in the meantime, we would carry some of that granite stone, which we call the granite stone flex space. This would be similar to that crushed pink granite that’s in Mundy Park. It seems to go over well. It is aesthetically nice. It is easy to walk on. We think it would lend itself well to different things such as comhole games, a Bocce Ball court and then over here maybe a concrete area with an outdoor ping pong table, so some games just to add a little bit more livelihood to the Water Street Mall and offer some things that aren’t in Mundy Park right now. These would, obviously, if we move into different phases, could be repurposed elsewhere throughout the downtown. Then you’ll see also off of the concrete walkway down the middle, we would have some sort of a future, right now we’re thinking some sort of a water wall, some sort of a water feature, just something to bring a focal point to the seating area in the center. Then you’ll also notice as he mentioned, we’re not quite sure yet where some of the entrances to the building would be, so we’ve kind of speculated having been in there that these different areas would allow access into the building to go directly out into Skinny Park. So that would be Phase 1. I don’t know if anyone has any questions there or if you want to just keep going to what Dave said as Phase 2.

Chairman Zine said a quick question. The building on the top of the screen, I think you called it 5 S. Broadway. What building is that? I know them by names, not by numbers.

Mr. Dibo said that’s Elmslie isn’t it?

Mr. Sieben said no, that’s the gentleman with the art center.

Mr. Dibo said I’m sorry. That’s Gary Brown’s.

Chairman Zine said and the one to the south is the Beilman building, correct?

Mr. Dibo said correct.

Mr. Sieben said that’s correct Charlie.

Mr. Bauer said so then moving on. One way that the area to the east could be repurposed, depending on what use comes into that half of the building, as Dave mentioned, we would probably look towards outdoor seating. Obviously, we know, and we found out over the course of last year, that both outdoor places to congregate and also for a business from an economic development standpoint, having that seating available is definitely key. We’ve been working with all the different businesses to try and figure out how to get seating outside, so we thought maybe that would be surrounded by some black fencing to segregate it from the public walkway and the other public use areas. Anything that happened in this phase we would envision that if there were garage door openings to open into these areas or again, if this is when some of these went in, any changes to the façade would obviously come back to this group for further comments. We’re not looking for those now. We’re just going through them to show you how this area would continue to morph based on the adjacent use. Then again, taking it further, if the west side were to develop, again, the outdoor amenities there could be relocated and repurposed in Water Street Mall or somewhere else and then that would open up this to be an outdoor gathering space, again with fencing, some sort of an entrance into the building, maybe an outdoor eating area with some sort of covering and, again, any openings out into Skinny Park we would come back, maybe not we specifically, but as a part of that development, would come back to this group for comment on any of those amenities. Again, that’s just showing how the area might change as that building continues to grow. Is everyone familiar with what this space looks like know? I do have some existing photos I could bring up really quick. This would be the art studio, so the north would be to your right and to the left would be the Beilman building. This existing asphalt stamped walkway would go away. It would shift over and we would have landscaping along the brick façade, most likely with artwork. If there was any additional lighting needed beyond the string lights, we might carry through some of the existing downtown bollards what we have along all the walkways, such as Benton. There might even be some right near Water Street Mall, or there were. But we are thinking that the string lights, which you can see in the vary back portion of the picture, if you can see those there on Water Street, we would continue that through this area.

Mr. Dibo said thank you Jason. That was a good summary. Why don’t we open it up for discussion, questions and input?

Chairman Zine said well I’ll start out by saying that it was obvious to everybody when COVID started that outdoor dining would be really important for the downtown businesses. But I also think beyond COVID, the outdoor dining is really important for downtown. It provides a whole sense of activity going on. I think it is much more inviting, especially in the warm weather. This is a great idea. I’m glad to see you guys have moved forward on this. Good job.

Mr. Dibo said we were talking pretty seriously to a couple of restaurateurs just when COVID hit and they were experienced restaurateurs and they were struggling to keep their own businesses going, so we are going to have to reinvigorate that. Getting an approval here, I think it will be so synergistic, so it will be exciting going forward.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said so where does the art come from? Does that go through the Arts Council or is that on restaurants?

Mr. Dibo said it will go through, and Jill I think you could help me with this a little bit more, but we’ve discussed that internally and it would go through the same process that we have now. No different than what we have now.

Mrs. Morgan said so it would be our mural process.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said so permanent murals then or rotating?

Mr. Dibo said I would think by definition it would be rotating because the whole concept is for the art here to rotate and change.

Mrs. Morgan said I would still say I’m assuming we would classify that as probably a mural, which would require APAC to review it for recommendations and then it goes before you guys, the DRC, with final approval at BZE.

Chairman Zine said so is the Bocce Ball strictly a Phase 1 kind of a place saver or is that going to be permanent, whether it is moved to another location or not?

Mr. Dibo said again, because it is iterative on the second and third phase, if things developed exactly as Jason showed, then it would have to be moved, but again, depending on the restaurant, what they need and so on. I wouldn’t say it is a placeholder because it could be there for a while, or it could be reconfigured, depending on how that other portion goes. It is specific to Phase 1. I think that’s the answer you are looking for there.

Mr. Castrejon said along the same lines, it is a fabulous plan. Are we looking more of a three season format? Is there a way to possibly think out a little further how could this space once completed still be used during the winter?

Mr. Dibo said that’s a great question Fernando. We’ve all seen such creativity during COVID in terms of restaurants and in terms of what people have done. It was so adhoc. Imagine to your point if it was planned. Because we are dealing with a blank piece of paper, I think it is a great thought to bring it home for more than just spring, summer and early fall season. We don’t have one restaurateur. What’s tricky about 13, not to diverge on something else, but it is a complicated building. You’ve got a number of stories above it and a stairwell in the middle, so there’s a lot of things we’ve got to figure out there to make that deal and that deal needs some substantial improvement, roofs and so on, so there’s a lot to be considered there. I’d love to see a major rehab which would improve that and I think if you are spending that kind of dough to do that, it would make sense to really have those restaurants be able to operate for most of the year.

Chairman Zine said I’d like to share an idea that I saw in Montreal Canada, and I’m not suggesting that we do it on this project now, but when I saw this several years ago, it struck me as a pretty original idea. They had also several buildings that were torn down and they ended up with a space like Skinny Park, but what they did is they preserved the front façade facing the street. They kept the openings for the windows and the doors, but there was no glass or doors. It kind of eliminated that gap tooth smile effect that you have with buildings that are missing. Then on the inside, they also opened up the side walls to the adjacent properties and used them for restaurants. So the only difference is that they kept or even built a new front façade to maintain the continuity of the storefronts. I thought that was a pretty original idea.

Again, I’m not suggesting that now, but I’d like to keep that in your minds for the future.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said that sounds very cool, almost like you are entering special space because there is the passage that you walk through, almost like a secret garden of games and delicious food.

Chairman Zine said well they even had another feature. Right in the center, they had a huge steel column that went all the way to the tops of the roofs and then it would open up and it almost looked like a pine tree and it protected the people underneath from rain coming down. It kind of shut all the rain off to the side and then on sunny days, everything would just kind of close up so it was open to the sunshine. I’ve got a complete set of photos I took of this years ago. If anybody wants to see them I’ll share them with you. I just thought it was a very original idea and they had a lot of these buildings that were missing, so they had a much bigger problem than we had and I thought it was an original idea that benefited the restaurants and the pedestrian traffic and everything else downtown.

Mr. Sieben said Charlie, what I like about this particular park is you have a direct shot into the Riverfront Playhouse. It is such a cool view.

Chairman Zine said yes, it is very, very nice. I think it also opens the possibility to get the Playhouse involved in this programming. Once we have restaurants out there and tables out there, it could be an interesting possibility.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said I like the idea of something to do. I love eating and drinking as much as the next person, but I like that there’s activity here that could go beyond because you can only sit at a table for so long and still wanting to see people, it’s nice to have an activity that you can do.

Mr. Palmquist said Jason, was the expectation that if somebody is going to use Bocce or any other, they’d have to bring their own equipment or how would that work?

Mr. Bauer said we were thinking it would be bring your own or maybe we could work with some of the nearby businesses and see if they would help in terms of renting them out during the day. We weren’t planning on keeping anything out there.

Mr. Palmquist said it wouldn’t stay there long.

Mr. Dibo said I’m from the east and New York and there was a restaurant in Little Italy that had a Bocce court in the restaurant and it was way cool. It was part of the restaurant. It was a long time ago. It would be great Fawn to find a way to integrate that in some way, who knows. I think these are all great ideas.

Mrs. Christensen said Dave, there’s a restaurant you Yorktown that has that and you reserve space and I can’t recall the name of it, but maybe that’s a restaurateur that you want to talk to that’s already doing this.

Mr. Dibo said that’s a great idea. There is no rush. Any ideas, because there is either one or two spaces, but it could be one restaurant or it could be two restaurants. I think we will certainly look to them, but if anybody has any ideas, just let us know.

We are all economic developers. We are all doing the same thing. So any ideas, this is the perfect time. A lot of the last year in our department we were completing a lot of projects that had started the year before like Copley and so on, but it is just wildly exciting to get our arms around some new stuff. I think that’s a great idea.

Chairman Zine said I also like Fawn’s comment that the activity is nice to have. If the restaurant came in, it wouldn’t be bad in my mind to have both outside seating and a Bocce court. It is long and skinny, but they you could have people from the restaurant sitting down and having drinks or snacks or dinner, playing Bocce Ball, watching Bocce Ball. I like it if it is possible. If we got to the point where space was so in demand that we had to fill it with tables, that would be a great problem to have. Again, putting activity in these spaces, I think, is really important.

Mr. Sieben said if you look at Phase 2, Jason maybe scroll down, that’s exactly what we are showing.

Chairman Zine said good. Nice.

Mr. Dibo said only in the third phase, depending on what happened that you might need that for the seating, but again, that’s all a high-class problem.

Mr. Sieben said Karen, were you saying something?

Mrs. Christensen said no. I was just thinking that when you said Bocce, I was thinking about that place. I know I’ve been there. You can do brunch and then you can use the Bocce court and it is indoors. So the thing that’s cool about it is it is not restricted by the weather. Is there any possibility of putting some kind of an interactive piece of equipment for kids, something that has an artistic vibe to it, but would be a climbing piece or something that kids could hang out on? I know we’ve talked about that in regard to RiverEdge Park, but maybe wherever there’s any pocket parks downtown, that seems to be an element that is missing is an opportunity for little kids to just kind of play on a piece of artwork.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said Jen is all over finding sculptures that may work that can be interactive and climbed upon safely. She has a lot of good ideas for that.

Mrs. Christensen said good. Thank you.

Chairman Zine said I also like the water features, not just because they are visual, but they make a nice background sound as well too.

Mrs. Morgan said were there any other questions for staff?

Mrs. Christensen said I would just make the comment that this is not only a great idea, but it is very much in keeping with the philosophy behind the FoxWallk guidelines, so this is really good.

Mr. Sieben said thanks Karen.

Chairman Zine said and if it is successful, it could be replicated elsewhere like Pinney Street.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said it is very exciting. Can we do it this spring? I’d like to go.

Mr. Dibo said I have to say, I really give a lot of credit to a bunch of people in the Mayor’s office because in this year of budget cuts and decrements and all this other stuff, there was a real, I wouldn’t say fight, but a real passion to keep this park in the budget. At one point in the Finance Committee, it was tossed out. It is really exciting to have something coming out of COVID that’s going to be built right away.

Mr. Sieben said Jason, what’s the proposed timeline?

Mr. Bauer said currently this is the first, well actually I want to say some of you, I think, are on Aurora Downtown, that was just last week that we started to roll this idea out, so we are kind of going through the different phases to make sure (inaudible) design probably in the next 2 months, so that we would be able to bid this out and be in construction sometime this summer, so to be done with it sometime in late summer or early fall.

Chairman Zine said and you may have mentioned it, and I may have missed it, but is there any landscaping elements here? Is there going to be any space available to landscaping or is it all going to be utilized for pavement and whatever?

Mr. Bauer said currently the thought would be, you can see off to the side where it says Water Street Mall, the various dimensions. You’ve got about 36 feet there, so on the side where the art would be, we would dedicate about 6 feet for some plantings that wouldn’t interfere with the artwork or the sting lights, then you have about a 10 foot walkway and then that last 20 feet would be dedicated to the various amenities. We would be working with the same horticulturist that’s on staff that’s worked throughout the rest of the downtown to make sure that we put something here that’s cohesive and that makes sense and will survive in that environment, but basically from here on out, we intend to do everything from a design standpoint inhouse to take of all of these different elements.

Mrs. Christensen said I just had a thought. Maybe already someone already said this, but in the wintertime, this might be an interesting place for ice sculptures similar to what they do in Lake Geneva and you could do colored lights to up light them at night. I did mention this to Trevor Dick at the Aurora Downtown meeting, and Dave you’ll relate to this because of New York City, like could we get some permanent chess tables there or at least one?

Mr. Dibo said you’re right. It is a staple. I grew up in Queens. They are a staple.

Mrs. Christensen said I’m thinking about Central Park with chess tables.

Chairman Zine said I also think anytime we have outdoor seating like this, there should be a raised area. It doesn’t have to be very high. It would be multi-purpose. It could be used for dining, but it could also, I think we should always think about having some space that could double as a stage or you could have an acoustic performance there or something. Whenever you have people gathered outside, why not have a space for a stage? It doesn’t have to be 4 feet off the ground. It could be a foot or 2 feet off the ground.

Mr. Dibo said maybe there is a space where the landscaping would be over there that you could put something there.

Review Committee

Chairman Zine said sure.

Mr. Dibo said then people could face that.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said like just to the west of the waterfall?

Mr. Dibo said yes.

Mr. Sieben said it is pretty skinny, so you would probably have a solo or a duo.

Mr. Failing said would be we able to do that with kind of the concrete area between comhole and Bocce? Could that be raised and kind of get that same affect?

Chairman Zine said I think that’s a good location because you could face east, you could face west. You have lots of possibilities with that, and again, if you are not using it, you could put tables up there or use it for something else.

Mrs. Clarke-Peterson said there must be some sort of bench system that could easily transform into sort of a low stage wouldn’t you think?

Mr. Palmquist said Fawn, I agree. I think the approach for a stage would want to be something that would be flexible and temporary rather than building it in. This space to me seems a little tight so if you are talking about raising then you have to have ramps and you’ve got ADA and you kind of start to inhibit your flexibility, so I think something you would bring in would be a better way. That may even want to be down on the end on Water Street Mall where you get more bang for the appearance. It would still be visible and audible from here, but also to the greater mall. I would recommend not doing something permanent in here given its size and just use the flexibility as the guide to any sort of performance.

Chairman Zine said but that ping pong area, like you say, it is close to the Water Street Mall, so you could face west or you could face down the park itself and you could use it for other purposes when you not using it for music.

Mr. Dibo said Karen, it would be kind of like in our generation it would be like the Two Tops and not the Four Tops because it is going to be a little tight in there.

Mrs. Christensen said well I want us to be very mindful of not impeding anything that’s happening at Riverfront Playhouse or that’s happening at the Venue, so whoever is going to have control over events that are programmed in the park. I don’t mean an informal causal guitarist, but I think we want to make sure that we are good neighbors, that the city is a good neighbor to the entertainment venues that already exist in close proximity.

Mr. Dibo said that really does make sense. These are some great comments. I’ve been taking a lot of notes because there is an iterative process here in terms of none of this equipment’s been purchased. We all appreciate everybody’s comments and I would totally be remiss if I didn’t give a lot of credit, or all of the credit, to Jason and Trevor who have worked just tremendously on this. Thank you Jason. Trevor had another meeting tonight and couldn’t come, but I want to thank him publicly for me. Chairman Zine said excellent. Thank you.

Mrs. Morgan said if there are no more comments, we would need a motion for approval or denial, whatever the Committee would like.

MOTION OF APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Karen Christensen

MOTION SECONDED BY: Brian Failing

AYES: Fernando Castrejon, Karen Christensen, Fawn Clarke-Peterson, Brian Failing, Jeff Palmquist, Charlie Zine

NAYS: None

A motion was made by Mrs. Christensen, seconded by Mr. Failing, that this agenda item be approved. The motion carried.

PENDING

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Mr. Sieben said Jill, do you want to mention what might be coming to their next meeting and when it might be?

Mrs. Morgan said so our next meeting, we’ll have one in April. We are wanting to do the training. I know we’ve kind of all been discussing it now for the past year or so, as well as we are going to bring forward a Guidelines update. Nothing major. Not really changing anything, just adding some additional guidance for like the same line as kind of the skinny park on the exterior stuff and what we would like to see in the downtown.

David and Trevor are working on that and we will be bringing that forward, which eventually would have to go all the way to City Council for approval. Past that, we will have some more murals. Jen Evans is working on some murals as we speak with APAC. We believe that will be hitting the May meeting. We are trying to continue with this first Wednesday of the month meeting. We are trying to stay at 6:00 o’clock.

Typically, we’ll have Planning Commission immediately following it, so it is a little bit of a time crunch, so we might have to move something to 5:30, but we are trying to stay with our standard 6:00 o’clock the first Wednesday. Are there any other questions? I know we haven’t met in a while.

Mrs. Christensen said so that would be April 7th Jill?

Mrs. Morgan said yes, April 7th.

Mrs. Christensen said and then May 5th?

Mrs. Morgan said and May 5th, yes.

Chairman Zine said is it fair to ask, is there any news on any of the big downtown development projects? I mean, you don’t see as much work going on now and, obviously, with COVID, that’s understandable, but are they all surviving?

Mr. Dibo said I’ll take a shot at that. Next week, I think we are going to work through Terminal and Keystone. A lot of work has been done on the interior, more than you would imagine, so those are pretty close to completion. I think there are some issues that they are dealing with Terminal on the windows, I think, and that’s still kind of playing out. But I think Keystone, which started after Terminal, looks like it is going to be done before, but we are now talking about within weeks, maybe 6 to 8 weeks. So those two look good. I’m still looking for a restaurant downstairs in the Terminal, a cute little space there on the corner there, so again, any ideas we are open to that.

There was a pizza place that had come close to signing, but then COVID. They had another restaurant and were just working hard to make their one restaurant survive. 80 S. River, I think people know, if you’ve walked by there recently, the storefronts look pretty good there. We’ve got some nice tenancy there and there are some other tenants that are going to be announced soon. So that is exciting, and that, as you know, has rented out fairly quickly. I’m just happy to report that Hobbs is finally financed and as we all know in this business with all the beautiful plans that you have, it is the financing that really makes it happen. Not to jinx anything, but my understanding is that within a couple of weeks that financing is set to close and we are supposed to start construction on Hobbs, which is wildly exciting. The Hobbs process was harder than you would have thought because Terminal and Keystone were on the Historic Register, whereas you would think that Hobbs was, but it wasn’t. So it had to go through on both buildings, the 6-12 building and the other building. So they had to do that and there were some comments that came back and forth. I don’t want to jinx it, so all 4 of those, which we considered the first wave. As we walk around this summer, you’ll see construction, hard construction, on Hobbs. We did a lot of work with the masonry on Hobbs to secure the building. It was getting scary in terms of the masonry and the foundation. That work was done last February, not this February, 13-14 months ago. That’s the update on the things that probably people are really thinking about. It is exciting in terms of stuff. Everybody knows that Copley is moving ahead too. On that whole wave, it looks good. Now this is part of that next wave of all the stuff we’ve got to be focusing on. Just looking forward with everybody in doing the next phase, so it is exciting.

Mr. Failing said how is the Mora and Craft Urban spaces coming?

Mr. Dibo said Craft Urban well. Mora not well. Craft Urban, that deal, the city is actually acting as the lender in that project. I’m going to run in front of City Council because they changed the plan a little bit in the sense that it is going to be all restaurant, including the upstairs, not restaurant and 2 apartments. So that was a change from what had gotten approved originally, but you are talking about outdoor space and fortuitus, that little lot on the corner, which what are we going to do with that thing, now all of a sudden that becomes, it was always valuable. What a wonderful location. It was always valuable, although Kevin and I kind of fought as to what that value was, but we ended up buying that and putting that in the deal. That one, I would say Bernie Laskowski, and if you don’t know Bernie, he is just the salt of the earth, just a wonderful human, he’s going to be starting, I would say getting building permits, I would say within the next 4-6 weeks for sure. Mora not so much. I think Mora was tricky because they had insisted on buying the building. We weren’t, and Charlie you and I spoke about it at the time, I remember, and they came to us and they insisted on buying that building. We tried to show them other buildings. They were hell bent on that building. They have the other 3 restaurants, so the deal with them was okay you really show us in a bonafide way that you have the money to convert, at least the first floor, to a restaurant and the estimated cost of that was $750,000, before we give you title. Unfortunately, they haven’t demonstrated that. So we haven’t been able to do that and we’ll have to see with COVID and again in fairness to Jason, for me, restaurants during this time he was closed a lot, he was really suffering, but he hadn’t come out of the box beforehand. So we are going to like re-evaluate it. He may want to do some events there on the mall. We are talking about stuff like that. Now with Hobbs in pretty good shape, we’re really going to turn our attention to figuring that with him or somebody else. I will say, I know this is a public meeting, not to get too detailed, that there were timeframes established in that project and those timeframes have not been met. So, therefore, the leverage, so to speak, is with the city in terms of what to do next.

Mrs. Christensen said Dave, I’m wondering when you are looking for a restaurateur for the Terminal building, it would be fun to maybe do am omage to a 50’s diner because the Broadway Diner was really famous as a place that people hung out in the morning and lunch. I don’t know if that’s feasible. I know alcohol is a significant revenue generator for a lot of places, but that might be a fun thing to look at.

Mr. Dibo said I think so. We don’t have that diner, and talking to a Queens boy, on Saturday night what are you doing? I’m going to the diner. I don’t think they have to have liquor sales. They just want to lease the space at a decent price, and I’m going to say $15 a foot or whatever number like that. It’s not like they need huge restaurant beverage sales to make those numbers work. I think we’ve all got to put our heads together in terms of now that the building looks like it is in pretty good shape, packaging it up. Like know, with this kind of approval, we’ll package up the 13 building next door and show somebody what could happen. We’ve been working furiously on just getting things done and we are not packaging enough, meaning showing people visually what this could be. Now with this kind of visual, I think we could do it. With the Terminal we could do it. There is a lot of packaging where we really show people what could be. I can’t imagine being a restauranteur and not looking at the Terminal site or this site. These are unique sites in the country to me, to all of us.

Mrs. Christensen said do you have an update on the corner, the northeast corner of Galena and New York, so the Arenkill, that whole property, where Yeti was going in?

There is that little convenience shop on the corner.

Mr. Dibo said that’s owned by J&H, which is Harish and Jay. We don’t yet. We are approving a TIF for that corner, which would include that, but we are speaking to them about that corner and, of course, the bank building across the street. The bank building looks good, but really needs a lot of work. Invest Aurora lent money, substantial money, to fix the elevators on that building, so I guess my answer Karen is I think they have been preoccupied. They did some work on the apartments inside and I think they did that to generate some revenue. But with the parking lot done and that other corner being done, I think it is a matter of focus. To be honest with you, from the city’s standpoint, we were so consumed with Hobbs. We’ve been saying to them, because they bought a lot of properties downtown, we said please get Hobbs done. So we’ve really not spoken to them on a lot of these other projects right now other than the bank building because the elevator needed to be done. We are going to deal with it right now because it is bordering eyesore right now in terms of it not being completed.

Chairman Zine said thanks for that update David. Does anybody else have any announcements? I saw something on Facebook today about an event Sunday over at the Stolp Social. Does anybody know about that? Is that them or is it like a popup thing? Nobody saw that? It was on Facebook. It was a food event. I don’t know more.

Mrs. Christensen said no.

Mr. Failing said no.

Chairman Zine said are there any other announcements? Staff, do you have anything else?

Mrs. Morgan said no, I think that’s all for us. We also will need a roll call for adjournment.

ADJOURNMENT

A motion was made by Mr. Castrejon, seconded by Mrs. Clarke-Peterson, that the meeting be adjourned.

https://www.aurora-il.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03032021-2550