By: Diane Benjamin
Followup to yesterday’s story: https://blnnews.com/2018/03/16/hum-uptown-circle/
As reported yesterday, this new building in Uptown has no tenants on the first floor. The Town of Normal is renting the entire second floor:
According to the Pantagraph from 7/4/2016:
The town will lease 13,780 square feet of office space for 15 years, with renewal options, at a base rent of $20 per square foot. After construction reimbursement and other fees, the town could be on the hook for $28.50 per square foot — $5.9 million for the 15 years.
It gets worse though (same article):
The town plans to sell the site to Tartan for $1 and loan the company $2.75 million for the project. That loan is to be repaid over 25 years with new tax increment financing, sales tax, food and beverage tax and hotel/motel tax money.
Yep, $2.75 million of your money is at risk.
One more from the article:
In March, council members questioned the town’s decision to lease the second floor at rent levels Tartan Realty Group President Doug Reichl called the highest in Central Illinois.
The luxury apartments are on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. How much do they rent for?
According to Zillow:
https://www.zillow.com/b/1-uptown-circle-normal-il-9J8XNH/
I hear the building has 21 apartments. How many are vacant according to Zillow?
The Normal Town Council, Chris Koos, and Mark Peterson gambled with your money.
Keep in mind, as Normal’s City Manager – Peterson was a non-voting Board member of the Economic Development Council.
With economic development like this, should we be thankful he couldn’t vote?
Does anybody else find it ironic the Pantagraph story was printed on July 4th?
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But…But….But……it will make Millennials–(many) noted for their Tide Pod common sense, wholesome values, sterling work ethic and tons of money–want to live Uptown. Surely a small price for taxpayers to fork over a few million dollars for. Spare Me!
Actually, the Tide pod morons are generation Z, not Millennials.
You can rent a nice 2-3 bedroom house around here for $1.400 a month – Like my Grandma used to say “Some people got lots more money than sense” Oh but they wouldn’t have such a prestigious address… spare me!! No wonder I avoid “Uptown” Normal as much as possible. This above is just another in a long line of wasteful debacles, but some people simply won’t admit when they make a mistake, they just keep making more of them and applaud each other.
$4,200 a month, seems like a reasonable rate, FOR UPPER MANHATTAN! I just looked, and you CAN stay at the Hilton (breakfast included) for $368 a night, So the choice is yours, UPTOWN (where even the SUBWAY don’t have lights or a sign) or UPPER Manhattan? Even Bozo wouldn’t have to think long about this multiple choice question..
It is really sad to see what they have done to a nice little town. It is now a monument to corruption, crony capitalism, and a complete disregard for the economic realities of the 21st Century.
Figuratively speaking, multiple 55 gallon drums of circumstantial evidence (because no official investigations will take place) the crooks are guilty.
Wait, they’re not done. How much do you think they’ll sell the vacant property in the circle for to Farnsworth and Wylie?
$1
Farnsworth already occupies the Town of Normal government offices, might as well make it official.
NAW, They’ll PAY THEM to take it as a TIF.. Maybe have bicycle races around it for summer fun!
If these units don’t sell, Koos and the lefties in Uptown should champion Section 8. I’m sure they’d love Section 8 tenants in their “beautiful people” neighbourhood. Haha! Perhaps Shayna and the regressives could start demanding lower cost housing in Uptown in the name of equality.
Some Section 8 folks would be nice to have in Uptown Downtown Normal… And some homeless folks could give it that downtown Bloomington feel… So… lets examine the new name for our former nice little town… Uptown Normal…. So the true intent was to say that little old (nice) downtown Normal has been turned into Upscale Normal (for the affluent) – So now the city moves it’s offices into the center of their creation… a place they created for people like themselves to feel comfortable and (of course) very important.
Property taxes raised. Garbage and sewer fees raised. 18 employees let go. Peterson is leaving the mess behind. Priceless! (Pun intended)
Sell them the sight and then loan them $2 million? I don’t understand the benefit. Oh well, it is the town of Normal. What a bunch of loons!
$2.75 million while raising property taxes because they failed to budget for pensions
Guess the council thinks we are living in New York! Who will pay that kind of rent monies when you can buy a house instead. Where do I go to get a piece of land for a buck? If I pulled that kind of deal I’d have the feds land on me real quick.
Of course anyone can click on the link provided but noted at Zillow is “One Uptown on the Circle is centrally located in the heart of Uptown Normal. Steps from dining, shopping, Amtraks high-speed rail line, the Constitution bike trail, public greenways and year-round festivals, One Uptown on the Circle is in the middle of it all.” All I can say is, OMG what BS! Year-round festivals! LMAO! Public greenways???!!! Lol. It’s seriously one big load of malarky!
It’s actually funny when you think about it as the more desperate they get, the bigger the lies are that they tell.
Driving though part of uppity town today, I had to get back to this Zillow description. It’s just too funny not to poke fun at it, one more time. “One Uptown on the Circle is centrally located in the heart of Uptown Normal. Steps from dining, shopping, Amtraks high-speed rail line, the Constitution bike trail, public greenways and year-round festivals, One Uptown on the Circle is in the middle of it all.” – – Centrally located in the middle of about a 6 block area, lol. So much for trying to make it sound like something that it’s not. Uppity town Normal is located on the edge of the ISU campus which mostly serves the college students. I can only think of one upscale restaurant. The rest are sandwich shops and pubs with grills, a burrito shop. Shopping includes a couple of t-shirt shops, a cvs, a few knick knack shops, three banks, and that’s about it. What a misdirected claim that it is. Tag as Normal, uptown, high speed rail, bovine excrement.
Whoever thought this whole Uptown thing was a good idea needs to have their head examined by a doctor.