By: Diane Benjamin
Is Uptown a success?
The successful buildings on the circle so far are government owned, Children’s Discovery Museum and Amtrak/Town offices. The third building still has an empty first floor and the taxpayers are renting the entire second floor for the Town. (Remember when the Council told Pam it was a high priority to get out of that lease? Reece must have forgot.)
Did you know Normal wanted development on the first floor of the College Avenue Parking deck? That never happened. https://pantagraph.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/normal-seeks-developer-for-college-avenue-parking-deck-space/article_c0633bf9-3167-595a-b806-ea569963789c.html
The last developer for Trail East backed out.
Normal funded initial development in Uptown. Recent large scale private investment can hardly be called a success. How is the Town responding?
So let’s go for two more:
https://www.normal.org/Bids.aspx?BidID=323
Even after giving away the land and offering incentives, the first Trail East didn’t materialize. The Town is doubling down and going for two new buildings now instead of just one new building. I wonder if the Town is continuing to tell developers what they have to build? That worked so well with 1 Uptown Circle!
Kiss Normal’s downtown history goodbye. Koos wants it gone before he “retires”.
The only question now is how much will Koos’ utopia cost the taxpayers of Normal?
See now why the Jelani Day memorial was quickly removed? Think the mural wouldn’t quickly disappear too if the Town could? Peons aren’t allowed to stand in the way of finishing the vision. Elections have consequences, maybe people should actually vote.
Koos’ vision continues at Monday’s Council meeting:
Nothing has been built, but $1.5 million has already gone to planning for a total of $4,791,586. Construction estimates are obviously off because of inflation, so taxpayers aren’t done paying for the vision. Congrats.
Just ignore the potholes and sewage in your basement.
Since Rivian is the community’s undisputed economic future soon to emoy thousands upon thousands, I suggest they take over the entire Uptown area transferring their corporate headquarters there. That will be followed by 20 suppliers employing thousands of more people. ISU will then find it necessary to establish a whole department dedicated to electric vehicle development, R & D and engineering. No pressure since Rivian is now declared a world leader in electronic vehicle manufacturing. BN should be thankful that such visionaries as Chris Koos, RJ Scaringe and JB Pritzker are leading the way. Vacancy problems solved for the next 50 years.
I propose that when the good Lord decides the King’s days have expired that he be entombed in concrete as a statue on the circle so the local pigeons can hang out and do what they doo-doo, bringing smiles to the masses. That of course would be the best addition ever and most appropriate imho.