Revitalizing SV’s business district

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

SPRING VALLEY — If you ask Mayor Cliff Banks about plans to revitalize St. Paul Street in downtown Spring Valley, he makes it sound simple.

“We’re looking to bring more businesses into the downtown,” Banks told reporters this week. “We have to start redoing these (downtown) buildings ... We’re just going to flip buildings.”

Banks is referring to the rehabilitation of downtown buildings — similar to work a team of local investors Banks calls the “citizens group” plans for a building at 120 E. St. Paul St.   

And while the Banks-led “citizens group” is an apparent frontrunner in a drive to rejuvenate Spring Valley’s downtown, the city has stepped up to the plate too.  

Thanks to a 6-2 vote by Spring Valley City Council Monday, the city moved closer to spending $10,000 to pin down a Community Development Assistance Program (CDAP) grant for a downtown redevelopment study.

If the grant comes through, it and the city’s $10,000 contribution would fund a downtown redevelopment plan by Peoples Economic Development Corporation, a subsidiary of southern Illinois-based Peoples National Bank.

According to plans, the company would do a photo analysis of 15 buildings along St. Paul Street to assemble a historic restoration model. It also would offer an outreach to downtown business owners, financiers and contractors to explain how tax credits and incentives could be awarded for building improvements.     

Aldermen Walt Marini and Chuck Hansen both voted against the city’s financial commitment Monday. They argue there isn’t enough community interest in the redevelopment plan to merit the city spending money on it.

“I feel that the city would be putting $10,000 into something the businesses would not use,” Hansen told the BCR this week.

Marini told the BCR if he “saw interest in this program, I’d be all for it.” But Marini said he’s seen no evidence local business owners have been enticed by recent public sessions on the plan.  

“(Economic development director) Debbie (Ladgenski) has had these meetings on this, and nobody shows up. That to me speaks volumes,” Marini said. “We ought to have interest shown in this plan before we put in the $10,000.”

Hansen indicated that even though Spring Valley’s downtown is specially zoned to channel government loans and other incentives for business improvements, owners historically haven’t taken advantage of it.

“We’ve had plans before, and they don’t seem to blossom,” Hansen said. “You’re happy in the beginning and everybody’s gung-ho, and then nobody follows through.”  

Hansen wouldn’t give examples of past revitalization efforts in Spring Valley which may have fallen flat. 

“I don’t want to implicate something like that,” he said.

Banks shrugged off criticisms of the redevelopment plan, telling reporters this week he believes city officials and downtown business owners would rally around revitalization once it gained a foothold.

“People get it in their mind that things aren’t happening and aren’t going the way they’d like to see them, and they get uninvolved in it. Once we get our (East St. Paul) building done up and they see that it looks nice, I believe you’ll see more going on downtown,” Banks said.

Comment on this story at www.bcrnews.com.