Kane County Reporter

City of Aurora Fox Walk Overlay Review Committee met June 21.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

CALL TO ORDER

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

ROLL CALL

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

OTHERS PRESENT

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

Others Present: Brandon Weis (Aurora Sign Company) and Kishore Kumar (133 W. Galena Boulevard).

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

21-0298 Approval of the Minutes of the FoxWalk Overlay District Design Review Committee meeting of May 5, 2021.

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

COA REPORT

21-0474 FoxWalk Certificate of Appropriateness Report (COA's Approved by Staff - May 1 - May 31, 2021)

There were no questions on the COA report.

This COA Report was discussed and filed.

PUBLIC COMMENT

None.

AGENDA

21-0476 Certificate of Appropriateness to allow a larger than 24 square foot wall sign on the west elevation facing the railroad tracks at 215 E. New York Street (Wayside Cross Ministries - 21-0476 - AU22/3-21.179-FCOA - JM - Ward 2)

Mrs. Morgan said this project is a Certificate of Appropriateness to allow a larger than 24 square foot wall sign on the west elevation facing the railroad tracks at 215 E. New York Street by Wayside Cross Ministries. They are requesting an approximately 91 square foot wall sign. The original request was to locate it above the 4th floor windows on the west elevation facing the railroad tracks. The subject property is zoned DF Downtown Fringe. If you are familiar with the property, the property consists of 2 buildings. There is the more historic 1930’s brick building. The sign will actually be located on the recent 4 story brick building with a central concrete bay. I think it was built in like the 2000’s. The drawing submitted shows a 22 foot 4 inches by 4 foot 1 inch illuminated sign that spells out Wayside Cross Ministries. Originally, they proposed it at the top, as you can see in that picture. They said they could move it down so it was beneath the windowsill of the 4th floor if the Committee would like that.

They are requesting to keep the larger sign. They said that in order to be able to really read the sign, they needed something a little larger to be more legible. Are there any questions for staff? Here you can see it kind of more from a distance what it would look like. The Petitioners are here too. If there are no questions for staff, I can hand it over to them to give some additional information or answer any questions.

Chairman Zine said is the position of that one the original position before they said they’d move it down below the window?’

Mrs. Morgan said yes. This is the original position.

Chairman Zine said and if it is down below that next row of windows, it is still visible above the tracks?

Mrs. Morgan said yes.

Mr. Palmquist said not to put staff on the spot, do you have a recommendation or thoughts on the extent of a variance? What is staff’s view of this and explain maybe, kind of summarize, how it deviates from that otherwise besides size?

Mrs. Morgan said the size is typically 24 square feet. I’ve looked at some of the past times when we’ve given variations. We’ve done it for larger buildings.

Mr. Sieben said I believe the last one we did was the Aurora Fastprint/United Way building right on Galena. That’s a 3 story building. We approved the multiple signs on that west face there along the river by Rotary Park there. That we did several years ago, but that’s an example where you had a larger scale building. Did you have another example?

Mrs. Morgan said I think you’ve mentioned the casino. There was a recent one where

I made them reduce the size, but it was a smaller building and they reduced it. This is a large building and 24 square feet would not be legible from so high and such a large building. I do feel that it would be out of proportion, so something larger does make sense with such a large façade. It is not a historic building, so you don’t’ have to really worry about damaging like any historic fabric and you do have the railroad that does kind of provide some blockage.

Mr. Sieben said and like Jill says, it is a matter of scale. This is an exceptionally large façade, so that’s part of it.

Mr. Palmquist said based on the photoshop and when I drove out there, it seemed quite large and maybe, in my opinion, unnecessarily large and it felt like, and I’ll just put this out there for other consideration, it seemed like rather than being in the center, to scale it to fit on the left side where there is space right at the corner of the building might be a way of giving appropriate visibility and not being quite so loomy, but again I would defer to my follow committee members for additional thoughts on the size and scale and if that’s a solution that might meet some concerns and still provide a great visibility.

Mrs. Christensen said in line with that question, I’m curious as to the rationale for the sign at all. The building is not a destination. Is this a marketing?

Mrs. Morgan said I can bring the Petitioner up.

Mrs. Christensen said I’d be curious from the Petitioner what the philosophy was behind the sign.

Thanks for having us. I’m Brandon Weis from Aurora Sign Company. When I saw that this one was rejected from the city, I had some thoughts on it, so I saw this as an opportunity to discuss not only this sign, but the neat thing about Aurora is it is changing and it is changing for the better, so I saw this as an opportunity to leave you guys with some goodies today and just some things to kind of keep in mind as you proceed with the Design Review Committee mindset of what’s going on downtown Aurora. Karen, to your question first before I go into the other challenges, that’s the one unique factor of this is it is not a destination location. They’re not selling anything.

I’ll reference other downtown areas when you go down there at night, you can look up and see that there is a bar at the top of that hotel, and they’ve got an illuminated sign.

Well they need that because they want people to go up there to the top of that bar at that hotel. So the necessity of the sign, I don’t know. I think that would be more for Wayside Cross Ministries. It is likely just to keep their name out there. They are probably getting in front of the idea that there are many more people in downtown Aurora then there have been in the past and they’d like to share who they are and why they exist. They are a fundraising effort all the time. I think this plays to that to answer your question.

Mrs. Christensen said the thing is, I’ve thought about this. If it were a commercial destination, I think I would have fewer concerns. I know Brandon you do excellent work. This is not a reflection at all on whether I think we should change our guidelines because, as you know, I believe we should, but the history of Wayside even being where they are because it is a gateway to downtown, there’s always been this tension about why is, back in the day when they came in to get approval to construct that new building, there was just a lot of conservation about the appropriateness. Not anything disrespectful of what they do or their mission, but just the appropriateness of that being the gateway. As I thought about this, that’s really where my concern lies is that this is a preeminent, even though it is exiting downtown, it is still a preeminent intersection.

Mr. Weis said right. It will be a presence there as we can see from that photo.

Mrs. Christensen said and it is not a commercial destination.

Mr. Weis said right. So to that point, and that actually kind of helps in leading into the next slides, anytime there is a sign designed anywhere, there is a challenge and there is a solution. You guys know that every time we’ve designed something for the downtown Aurora, we’ve always taken into consideration what are the ordinances, what is the line of site, what is the speed of travel, who’s the audience, how is it going to be perceived by people who have never been to Aurora before. So when I saw this come through, it looked bigger to me than it needed to be, so I completely agree with you Jeff. So I took a deeper look at this and it is a unique location. We do have train tracks there. If you were to do a Google image, and granted a train doesn’t pass through there 20 times a day, but the train blocks that building in the Google image and then the audience of the sign. They are really speaking to the folks at the intersection of Broadway and New York and they are speaking to any pedestrian traffic that’s maybe leaving a show or leaving the hotel and going to get a burger or a beer at Bally Doyle’s. That who they are talking to really because it is not eastbound traffic on New York Street. That said, disregarding what type of business it is, it is a business that’s trying to attract attention to itself in some manner. I took a look at the other sizes of characters that we have put downtown Aurora and the intention of them. The first one is the parking on sign on the casino. That’s a gigantic building. Needless to say, it is the casino, so it needs to play well with the sign across the street, but for a point of reference, which is the only reason I’m bringing it up, those are 28 inch tall characters. They are big. They are really big. The parking sign on New York Street that I think you can see in that picture there that we put in for the city, those characters are 14 inches. They are actually 14.75, 14¾. Jump over to the stage at RiverEdge Park, John C. Dunham, those characters are 22 inches. If we look at the sign on the back of Gillerson’s Grubbery, the intention of that sign was that someday there’s going to be a bridge. We all went to the thing last week and it was fantastic.

Well the folks coming off the bridge and parking in that parking lot can very clearly, legibly see that sign. It says Gillerson’s Grubbery and those characters are 24 inches.

So where do we get the information for what is legible per distance? I’ve printed off a bunch and I’ll leave them here with you in case you guys need to reference them going forward. In 1992, a gentleman by the name of Paul Arthur, he’s an architect, and he did all of the research and development and all the good stuff that tells us that at, for example, 9 inches of letter height we need at least a football field of distance away to be able to make that character out. That character needs to be a legible character. It needs to not be cursive. It needs to be sort of a block font. So when we talk distance and legibility, we’re talking block fonts. In this case, when I looked at this sign, it was initially designed with the word Ministries below it to make sure it was as close to 18 inches as they could get it. Well what that did was that took Wayside Cross and pushed it up to 24 inches. I believe that this sign can reduce in size and I also think it is too high on the building because it is covering some of those neat little limestone medallions and I think that always resists the building and the purpose of a sign is to be sort of an aesthetic extension of whatever building it is on. So I would like to move it down. I’d also like to decrease it in size. Jill referenced the size earlier, the square footage of the sign as a box around the sign. We looked at it as 2 components and I can’t recall if that’s okay or not, but that’s what we did for the purposes of this. Currently, it is designed at 56 square feet if we reduce it into 2 separate components. If we take the top line down to 18 inches and we take the bottom line to 14 inches, that gives us 44 square feet. If we take the measurement from the intersection of Broadway and New York to the wall that the sign sits on, that’s 450 linear feet and then it’s 4 feet up, so it puts some play in there. If we look at our legibility chart, the legibility chart will tell us that at 18 inches, you really need to have about 560 feet to make sure it is visible. Well we are within that. You don’t want to get outside of that and we are within that at that intersection. I think that if we reduce the sign, maintain the legibility, bring it a little closer to the ground, we’ve got a win there as far as legibility and placement goes. As far as aesthetics go, the reason that we went in the center of the building is because we’ve got a higher parapet in the center and the entire building is occupied by Wayside Cross. We did have a deign that had it moved off to the left and the sentiment was it looks like we are occupying a portion of the building, so we kind of just bookended it a little and just kind of put some margins around it basically is what we did. The sign will illuminate white at night and on the dark background, we got a nice clean legibility factor there, so there are no concerns there. As far as the placement of size and legibility, we’re thinking if we go down 1 story and reduce the size of the sign, and if you’ll allow us to calculate the square footage in 2 components, hopefully we’ve got a win there.

Chairman Zine said so you talked about moving it down. Moving it down from the position it’s at now or below the alternative position already discussed?

Mr. Weis said the alternative position already discussed. So right now, the sign is up top. If we reduce the size, we’d go down. See the horizontal limestone line, we’d like to be right below that, right there. I do have a printed photo if you want to see it a little clearer.

Chairman Zine said I wanted to say that I remember when they built that building and the old building, I think, was a slaughterhouse at one time. I think they spent $10,000,000 on that building. If I remember correctly, there were no tax dollars involved in that. They raised all their own money. I’m not opposed to having their name on the building. I don’t have any connections with Wayside Cross, but two things. One, it is on the other side of the tracks and until recently, I hardly ever went to the other side of the tracks. But now LaSalle Street is starting to build up, but you look at this big new building and people who come to town that don’t know what that is, they might not go there because they wanted to go there, but they might go there because they don’t know what it is and it might be what they are looking for. I don’t have a problem with their name on the building. I like the idea of dropping it down a little bit. That’s my 2 cents.

Mr. Sieben said could I just ask Brandon, did you calculate if you were to do it as one rectangle instead of 91, now what would it be calculated at?

Mr. Weis said it comes out to about 70. I think it is just shy of 70. I think it is 68.

Mr. Sieben said and what Brandon say about how it’s being measured, I think technically the ordinance does say you put the rectangle around it, but in reality, if you were to go like this and really outline the words, in reality the actual square footage from a visual point, it is actually less than that. I think it is good if we just mention both of those figures.

Mr. Weis said agreed. I haven’t even met anyone over at Wayside Cross. I brought Jason along this evening. This is kind of a training effort, so I’m hoping things go really well tonight. I thought the sign was too big. Aurora is where I’m from and what I love and I want to see it do great, so I wanted to bring that as, hopefully, some sort of concession and maybe we could go with that.

Mr. Castrejon said so your revision would still have to be brought up to their Board or get approved before you present?

Mr. Weis said no, we’ve talked with them and the revision would be so much so that it is sort of in the same price category. It is a smaller revision. It does go down a little bit, but we’ve still got to get out there and install the same sign, so that’s where most of the dollars come from. They are aware of this meeting this evening and aware of our mindset via the project manager.

Chairman Zine said so then are you formally proposing to set it down to the next size down?

Mr. Weis said yes. The largest concern was that a 24 foot square foot sign at that height of that building with that distance of who’s reading it, it is smaller than the sheet of plywood and you can reference character height, but if the character height, if there’s a lot of characters, Jeff Palmquist versus hotdogs, is going to be different in size of character when you are trying to cram it in that square footage.

Mrs. Christensen said I would make a motion to approve the proposal as amended.

MOTION OF APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Karen Christensen

Motion SECONDED BY: Brian Failing

AYES: Fernando Castrejon, Karen Christensen, Brian Failing, Jeff Palmquist, Charlie Zine

NAYS: None

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

21-0473 Certificate of Appropriateness for the redevelopment of the front facade and west elevation at 133 W. Galena Boulevard (Kishore Kumar 21-0473- AU22/1-21.178-FCOA- JM - Ward 6)

Mrs. Morgan said this is for a Certificate of Appropriateness for the redevelopment of the front façade and west elevation at 133 W. Galena Boulevard by Kishore. He is requesting that the front façade and west elevations be completely redone. That’s why I’m bringing it before the DRC just because staff felt that it was a pretty elaborate change from what’s currently there and what’s historically been there. Let me bring up a short presentation. The subject property is currently zoned DF Downtown Fringe.

The building is an early 20th century commercial building that was built circa 1904.

The building is currently clad in off-white glazed brick on the front façade and first story elevation. The second story elevation is clad in stucco. The second story façade contains a Chicago style window. The glazed brick, stucco and Chicago style window appears to be alterations from, we believe, about the 1950’s. The building was originally used as the Co-Operative Laundry Company. Its current use is a packaged liquor store. The city no longer allows selling packaged liquor in the downtown. The current license has been grandfathered in, but to sell the business, the buyer needed to apply for and be granted a liquor license, a request that the city deemed reasonable with certain conditions. That’s where this kind of all began. The owner would like to sell the property. A potential buyer wants to purchase it and wants to keep it as a liquor store. That’s not allowed in our current ordinance. Because the current license is grandfathered, the new owner would have to get a new license. They came before the city and started working with our Liquor Commission through the City Clerk and brought in the rest of the staff. Staff felt that if we were going to allow this use, that we would want to see this building redeveloped to be a better entrance for our downtown.

This is also currently going through a redevelopment agreement as we speak through the city. The owner, the buyer and the city all sat down and once we got some numbers to figure out an agreement with everyone giving a little bit, the city is giving some through this redevelopment agreement. The requirements as it currently stands is the existing cladding, stucco and brick will be removed and replaced with bricks that resemble those that were originally there. The existing storefront, which is not up to code, will be replaced. The second story window on the front façade will be replaced consistent with FoxWalk guidelines. The new windows will be installed consistent with FoxWalk guidelines. A new awning approved by FCOA will be installed. All the old signage will be removed. The parking area just west of the building will be resurfaced.

Code violations will be corrected and the interior of the store will be upgraded within 2 years. The current building, the façade, and the glazed brick is technically 50 years old, so that could be considered historic. Staff didn’t feel there was any significance of that development period for Aurora or really significant architecture of the glazed brick on this building. After several discussions with the architect, staff reached out to a local mason, Regency Tuckpointing, to kind of figure out what is feasible. Staff’s original hope was to remove the glazed brick, remove the stucco and expose the original brick underneath. The mason met on-site. He looked at it. His professional opinion was that the brick underneath that would probably be too damaged to restore.

With that in mind, we had to come up with a game plan, so the game plan we went with was to re-clad the whole façade with new brick, but brick that looked like what the historic brick would have looked like. Here are some more pictures of the building and the sides. Here is a basic drawing of what the elevation would look like. As no historic photos could be found of the original building, I have one, but as you can see, it really doesn’t show anything. It was included in your packet. Staff determined to allow them to maintain the storefront, the first story glazed storefront. They are going to re-glaze it, put new aluminum framing, new glass, but to keep it that since we don’t know what it would historically look like. It wasn’t a commercial building, so it wouldn’t have that commercial storefront that we often see in the downtown. The second story window, also since it is not original, we went inside and you could kind of tell where the original lentil would have been, but we, again, don’t know exactly what the second story would have looked like, that having 2 windows kind of consistent to the buildings beside it, so you kind of have a consistent look that would be appropriate. It would also set it up for the potential use of apartments in the future having 2 separate windows instead of 1 window. Then you would have the wall kind of coming down the middle of 1 window. For the side elevations, they are proposing some windows. Again, they are trying to align it with a future use of apartments. Staff had discussion with the architect about making sure that they meet our guidelines being aluminum clad wood windows, like one over one sash, either single or double hung, divided by mullions.

One recommendation I mentioned is staff would say instead of these rows of windows that they be separated to no more than 2 windows, what we call like a double windows, so 2 sashes and 2 sashes be the most instead of like 4 windows would be staff’s recommendation. Here is kind of a future floor plan if they are thinking of apartments.

Chairman Zine said is the upstairs vacant now?

Mrs. Morgan said it is vacant now, yes. It is used for storage currently.

Mrs. Christensen said so is the proposed use going to continue to be packaged liquor?

Mrs. Morgan said it will, yes.

Mrs. Christensen said so that’s been grandfathered?

Mrs. Morgan said they have to get the new license. The city said they would be supportive of it with all these changes. So we get the rehab of this building and we will allow you to keep the use.

Mrs. Christensen said so is the Petitioner here?

Mrs. Morgan said yes. He is the potential buyer.

Mrs. Christensen said so here’s a question that I have, and Jill you can refresh our memories about the ordinance. First of all, I would say, and I’m guessing I’m speaking for everybody, this would be a huge improvement. Hooray for you. Having said that, one of the issues that has always plagued that building has been the fact that the windows are always completely covered with advertisements and posters, which by the way is a violation of the ordinance. I just don’t think it’s ever been enforced, but my hope would be as the new owner, that you would be able to see into the first floor space.

Mr. Kumar said we are proposing to, due to the covering of the window, we are planning to use (inaudible) because of the sun on the east side and west side for the corner, that’s where we’re going to put in new windows. We are going to tint our windows. That way they can be open and never going to be closed and no shades. It will be visible for the customer and be visible from the store, anything going on. The existing windows, you are right, everything is shaded. You cannot see most of it.

Mr. Sieben said Karen, that is a condition. There’s going to be no window signage.

The only signage that he could have in the windows would be an occasional, like a neon sign or something like that.

Mrs. Christensen said not flashing because that’s a violation of the ordinance.

Mr. Sieben said absolutely. Obviously, Kishore is not the one that did it. It is the current owner that did it, but I didn’t even realize until we got out there that literally that’s on the exterior of the windows where you could just peel them off. That is a huge component of this redevelopment.

Mr. Palmquist said I have a question or comment. I didn’t see it on the rendering.

When you look at the existing photos, what’s left of a trash enclosure is pretty much an eyesore. Any thought of how that would be handled? Is that the only location where there can be a trash enclosure?

Mrs. Morgan said we looked at that as well. No, there is really no other location to put the trash enclosure unfortunately. We did talk that we would want like a new fencing to make it look nicer.

Mr. Palmquist said I don’t know that we need to legislate here on the trash enclosure, but leave it to staff to make sure there is an appropriate trash enclosure.

Mr. Kumar said they want to move the trash to the city lot. They have a citation to if

we don’t have an accommodation for the city, then enclose. Otherwise they say they have a lot, a city lot, they are going to use for the garbage.

Chairman Zine said in the lower level?

Mr. Kumar said lower level.

Mr. Sieben said we’ve talked about Lot H. It is just a matter trying to get there. That is something in the future we may be doing.

Mr. Palmquist said my other comment had to do with the awning. You said that has to be a cloth awning of some sort, correct?

Mrs. Morgan said yes. We don’t allow like a vinyl, so it has to be…

Mr. Palmquist said and that’s not illuminated from underneath?

Mrs. Christensen said no, that’s a violation of the ordinance.

Mr. Palmquist said and then I don’t know if that’s just a generic rendering of the lettering and name.

Mrs. Morgan said I think that’s generic.

Mr. Palmquist said I would encourage some sort of more stylized font and name graphics on that. I think that would make a big difference in how that awning reads.

Mr. Sieben said it will no longer be Foremost. Do you want to explain?

Mr. Kumar said right now that is an existing store, Foremost, but the new one is going to be Galena Liquors. That’s the name.

Mr. Palmquist said I don’t know how we can encourage that to not just be a Helvetica

like that, but something that might be a little more striking or appropriate for a downtown gateway.

Mrs. Christensen said I would agree. That’s an important intersection and people are definitely going to notice the improvement to that building. That’s one people will really pay attention to. Also to Jeff’s point, I know this isn’t something over which we have control, but if the font on the awning was a little bit more interesting, it might also change the opinion that many people that live in Aurora have about that existing business. So, in other words, if you are trying to attract new customers who may not have patronized it previously, maybe that’s a way to do it.

Mr. Palmquist said well said.

Mr. Sieben said the goal is to try to get it more upscale. You’re getting new residents downtown and trying to improve the interior.

Mrs. Morgan said in the development agreement there are some deadlines. They have to retain contracts with contractors approved by the city within a few months of the passing of the redevelopment agreement, so there are timeframes then when the work has to be done within a certain time and then the interior is a longer, more 2 years, kind of in the future.

Mr. Sieben said and hopefully the apartments after that. That is his goal to get 2 apartments up there.

Mr. Kumar said right now I see the improvement for the apartments.

Mr. Palmquist said that’s a good point that the more upscale this looks, the more likely that that would be successful as 2 rental units.

Chairman Zine said well I’m pleased with the exterior. It is such a tremendous improvement. I’m glad to see apartments going in there too. We need as many downtown as we can. Are there any other questions? Thank you very much. I think it is a good plan.

Mrs. Morgan said so staff would recommend approval of the Certificate of Appropriateness for the development of the front façade and west elevation at 133 W. Galena Boulevard with the following conditions:

1. That all windows should be single or double hung, aluminum-clad wood windows separated by mullions.

2. That the windows on the west elevation closest to Galena Boulevard be separated into two separate double windows.

3. That the windows on the west elevation closest to Galena Boulevard be no more than a double window.

MOTION OF APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Brian Failing

MOTION SECONDED BY: Fernando Castrejon

AYES: Fernando Castrejon, Karen Christensen, Brian Failing, Jeff Palmquist,

Charlie Zine

NAYS: None

A motion was made by Mr. Failing, seconded by Mr. Castrejon, that this COA be approved. The motion carried.

PENDING

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Chairman Zine said I have more of a question than an announcement. I’m a regular bike trail user and there is one garbage can downtown that just drives me crazy and it’s on the Aurora Business Center right as you come up behind Waubonsee and meet that short street there. It is a big dumpster. It is out on the city sidewalk.

Mr. Sieben said the 31 W. Downer, the office building.

Chairman Zine said yes.

Mr. Sieben said there are newer owners of that. We did have a DST meeting. They were looking to try to redevelop the basement. We brought that up as a big issue.

Obviously, it is sitting in the sidewalk. The problem is the footprint of the building and the property line is the footprint of the building. The one thing, and we’ll pursue it, I’ll work with Trevor on it, is try to get them to work with Waubonsee. Right across the street, there’s a huge enclosure right across the street. That’s something we will probably have to help facilitate them with to see if we could locate that in there. The other option was to lease a spot on the grass, but that’s city property and then you’re still along the river there, so I think if we can get into the Waubonsee College enclosure that’s a win/win.

Chairman Zine said that would be huge. They don’t even put all the garbage in the garbage. It is spilling over on the sides. It is such a beautiful area right there. It drives me crazy every time I go by there.

Mr. Sieben said we’ll follow up with that.

Mrs. Morgan said the Hobbs building is starting to move forward. I think they finally got all their funding, at least with the tax credits and stuff and those have gotten approved, so that’s moving forward. The Terminal building is moving forward. They are a little bit stalled now. I believe the last I heard they are waiting on the windows to get done, so they are moving on to kind of focusing on Keystone, but that seems to be also kind of moving forward.

Mr. Sieben said I think they want to do Keystone, finish that and then Terminal.

Chairman Zine said that’s a big improvement to the back of the Keystone building.

Mrs. Morgan said Craft Urban is, I think, moving forward as well. I think they finally got their building permits all approved, or close to it.

Mr. Failing said any update on Mora or Skinny Park?

Mrs. Morgan said nothing on Mora that I know of.

Mr. Sieben said Mora is slowly, they keep moving.

Mrs. Morgan said Skinny Park, I believe it was supposed to be this year, correct Ed?

Mr. Sieben said I think so.

Mrs. Morgan said I haven’t heard anything.

Chairman Zine said and what about the Shodeen property where the VNA was. Wasn’t there a sunset clause on that where he had to develop something or lose that property?

I thought we gave him a time limit to start something and it’s been years already.

Mr. Sieben said we’d have to check with Trevor.

Mr. Failing said do you think we’ll have a July meeting?

Mrs. Morgan said probably not July. Nothing is on the radar, so probably August.

ADJOURNMENT

A motion was made by Mr. Failing, seconded by Mr. Castrejon, that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried by voice vote. Chairman Zine adjourned the meeting at 6:45 p.m.

https://www.aurora-il.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_06212021-2640