With the news Tuesday (Nov 10) that Danville is receiving a $4 million Regional Site Readiness Grant from the state, Danville Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk said during Tuesday evening’s City Council Public Works Committee meeting that alleviating the flood problem out at the Quaker-Heatcraft site on East Voorhees is exactly what it will be used for.
As part of the grant agreement, Danville will need to kick in $1 million more. And Cronk describes what will happen as simply “moving a lot of water.”
AUDIO: Some would call it “remediation,” but the floodplane is going to remain. We are doing “floodplane diversion.” And we suspect that can be done for around $5 million, to essentially make the former Quaker and Heatcraft sites, since the City of Danville now controls both, ready to be redeveloped.
Danville Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk (second from left).
Cronk says making this official could take anywhere from two to eight months, and then they’ll be ready with a request for quotes for the project. Then, you can figure about eight to 12 months to design it, and a year to 18 months to do the work.
At the end of Tuesday’s committee meeting Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr said there’s a second piece of good news about the Quaker-Heatcraft site. Danville submitted three locations to the State of Illinois to be included in their request to the feds for “opportunity zone” designations. The state submitted 240 different sites to the feds. And low and behold, all three Danville sites were accepted; allowing for tax breaks for investors in all three locations.
Former Quaker Site on East Voorhees (Jennifer Bailey / News-Gazette)
AUDIO: Private investors. They receive additional funding, and additional tax credits, to invest in a particular area. You’re basically going to receive a greater return on the investment that you make.
The other two Danville “opportunity zone” locations are along the Lynch Road corridor and in the downtown region.
And on top of that, Cronk stated during the committee meeting that the Illinois IDA program, which provides funding to communities for qualified owner occupied home rehabilitation projects, has been impressed with Danville’s participation in the program thus far, as is therefore offering Danville $155,000 in additional funding. Cronk says if you had applied for this project but were not selected; you are still on the list and one of the new recipients could be you. But Cronk says please don’t call the city. If your original application is selected, they will call you.
AUDIO: We will directly reach out to the individuals that have applied and are next in line on the list. We suspect we’ll be reaching out to around five individuals down the list.
The early part of Tuesday’s Public Works Committee meeting included discussion on budget adjustments needed to get the newly proposed Home Grown Initiative off the ground; which would aim to provide quality places to live in Danville for current and future professionals working there. Cronk says the proposal calls for hiring one new person to administer the project at the very beginning, being hired perhaps internally or externally. The whole proposal should come before the entire City Council on Tuesday, November 17th.
