We've been challenged by Trustee Smith to organize and come up with a vision for the CBD. What's the next step? The next meeting is right around the corner. What other plans are their for financing improvements in the CDB?
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What's Next?
(6 posts)-
Posted Thursday Dec 7, 2006 15:43 #
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Well, we haven't been thinking about it as long as they have. How about this: let market forces do their work. Riverside Foods, Riverside Garage, Chew Chew, the 2 coffee shops, and the hot dog shop have NO problems getting customers. Many businesses, like the framing shop, were not patronized because they did not offer good value for money. Get the owner(s) of filty or leaking buildings to keep them in good repair so that people will want to rent, shop, or eat in them. Persuade First American Bank to share its parking lot. Persuade parkers in the Pine Street lot to allow short term parking in their spaces in those parts of the day their cars are out.
I would like to know by what multiple ours sales tax revenues would have to increase in order to meet the government's goal.
Posted Thursday Dec 7, 2006 17:09 # -
Exactly Catherine,
We would need THOUSANDS of new residents to make an impact on sales tax. Otherwise, they need to come from the outside. That is the $20 Million dollar question. If you build it, will they come? And who are they anyway? La Grange, Oak Park, Oak Brook, Western Springs have their "lifestyle centers" already. Will we become a "lifestyle center" destination for Berwyn, Stickney, and Lyons, maybe. What kind of retail would attract them? Is that what we are after in our downtown? Is there enough traffic already? People really need to think about what they are after here.Olmsted planned for our downtown to 'enhance the village' and 'provide BASIC services to it's inhabitants.' That is it. Do we want this reality to change?
Question to self... Which village, that had a successful TIF, had it's taxes go down?
Posted Thursday Dec 7, 2006 23:05 # -
Yes, Kim, which brings us to the question assumed but not posed in the first paragraph. Namely, why did a CBD need to be formally established, and why does the government have to finance it? If it were beautiful or historic, I could understand this better.
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I can see why architecture tourists would want to visit here, particularly because we do not have an ugly developed downtown with panhandlers in it like Oak Park. I can see that tourists and we might have a certain overlap in shops we might wish to have, but not much. How many tourists would have to come and how much would they have to spend to achieve the desired increase in revenue, and is this a reasonable expectation based on evidence?  And also, who is the downtown for? There is already too much traffic passing through Burlington and Longcommon.
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Why not enforce the codes, institute edifice requirements for the appearance of all buildings, make more flexible use of existing parking, and see how the new construction already underway fares? What is the rush?ÂPosted Thursday Dec 7, 2006 23:58 # -
Actually, I see Trustee Smith's views more fully represented here.
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http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=2060&TM=83032.31
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I think the answer to the Board's question about why so many people are coming forward in opposition now can be found on the corner of Burlington and Longcommon.Posted Friday Dec 8, 2006 10:29 # -
Some discussions about "the type of development we want to encourage in Riverside" were held in conjunction with the development of the CBD plan a couple of years ago. Building density, architectural elements, building use and accessibility, and impact on pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns were technically considered.
Unfortunately, as the current development at the former Heninger site demonstrates, there was obviously not enough thought put into how things would look in 3 dimensions (or cheap yellow brick, for that matter) and how the character of our historic Village would be impacted. (Just think how hideous that building would have looked if those folks had been granted the 5 building variances they requested!)
There is no guarantee that throwing monetary incentives at private developers will encourage the type of pedestrian-friendly historically-sensitive development that we want, but seem unable to properly articulate, for the CBD. The current permutation of the TIF planning document allows the Village such vast discretion... While we have elected officials for a reason and should not, in an ideal world, be "micro-managing," Riverside is a special place - in a far from ideal world. Whatever the TIF planning document winds up looking like, I'm all for putting it to referendum.
Posted Sunday Dec 17, 2006 09:58 #
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