The Danville City Council Public Works Committee has forwarded to the full council a motion to apply for up to a $2 million grant for downtown redevelopment from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The committee has accepted DCEO’s RISE Local and Regional Program consulting work on a rehab plan, which came at a cost of $75,000 after consultants first viewed the downtown situation last December.
Pending full City Council approval, Danville will soon be applying for up to $2 million in funding from Illinois’ Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity RISE Implementation Grant Program for downtown revitalization.
Now, Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk says it’s a matter of getting the grant application in and waiting. What part of downtown would this affect the the most? He says that remains to be seen.
AUDIO: We don’t have a lot of the specifics. Right now, we can state that the application will include all of downtown. We’re hoping to impact all businesses, possibly infrastructure, things like that. The grant application is due in mid July. So, we can expect, at least three to six months afterwards; we’ll find out when awards will start coming out.
If Danville is awarded any portion of up to the $2 million grant, the city would be required to do a 25% match for funding applying to publicly owned infrastructure or buildings, and 50% for privately owned. Cronk says that could be handled in a variety of ways.
Dirt and contaminant removal continues at the site of the old gas station on the NE corner of Fairchild and N. Vermilion. Similar work will soon be happening on the SE corner (in background).
Meanwhile, the Public Works Committee also passed on to the full council an insurance policy in regard to the current cleanup from the old gas station recently torn down on the northeast corner of Fairchild and North Vermilion. Current owner GBL Properties has been clearing out the old contaminated dirt. Now, the committee has approved a highway authority agreement and addendum between the city and GBL in case something happens way, even decades, down the road. As Cronk explains, there are no plans or needs right now to tear up Vermilion or Fairchild as part of this project. But if that need ever arrives someday, the city will not have to pay for the removal of contaminated dirt.
AUDIO: The addendum that was passed, with the highway authority agreement, not only allows the soil to stay in place right now; but it removes the liability from the City of Danville, once the landowner has been notified that the city is going to be doing pavement maintenance. We notify the land owner, according to the addendum, 30 days in advance, they are then responsible for the soil underneath the pavement at that time.
Danville Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk (second from left) speaks during Tuesday, June 11th Danville City Council Public Works Committee meeting.
Cronk says similar hole digging for major dirt removal will soon be happening on the southeast corner of Fairchild and North Vermilion, as that corner’s history includes a dry cleaners and other businesses that left contaminants. Cronk says the city was awarded about $1 million for the remediation of that city owned site.
