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Des Plaines approves downtown banner program

Businesses in downtown Des Plaines seeking more visibility are getting help promoting themselves and drawing in new customers through a city-sponsored banner program, officials said.

The Des Plaines city council on Monday night approved funding the downtown banner program with money from a special taxing district.

Businesses generating sales tax within the downtown Tax Increment Financing district will be allowed to purchase space on banners to advertise their name and/or location. The banners would be placed on downtown light poles.

Participating businesses could purchase up to four banners at a cost of roughly $50 each. Banners would be displayed during the spring and summer months of 2011-12.

Des Plaines Ward 5 Alderman James Brookman suggested the program be open to all sorts of businesses, including professional offices, and not be restricted only to those that generate sales tax.

“Any business in the TIF should be able to buy space and advertise,” Brookman said. “Just because we get a benefit from the sales tax, that really seems self-serving of the city. My problem is it’s just discriminatory against businesses that don’t bring any money back in sales tax to the city.”

Acting City Manager Jason Slowinski said the idea behind the restriction is to drive foot traffic to local businesses to produce revenue for the city.

Ward 1 Alderwoman Patti Haugeberg said the program would help improve visibility for restaurants and businesses within Metropolitan Square that don’t face Miner Street “so that people would know that these businesses are there.”

“I wish that these banners could have gone up a long time ago,” Haugeberg said.

Haugeberg said the banners may have helped the now-shuttered Cheeseburger in Paradise eatery stay open “if there would have been vehicles for them to advertise in other sections of the downtown area.”

“We don’t want to see any more storefronts close,” she added.

Ward 6 Alderman Mark Walsten said the city could revisit the program in a few months and expand it to all businesses if not enough people take advantage of it.