Lake Zurich officials seeking downtown vision
Visions of what a revitalized downtown Lake Zurich could look like will be bounced around at a special village board meeting.
Mayor Thomas Poynton and village trustees will start the session at 6:30 p.m. today at the police department's community room, 200 Mohawk Trail.
The meeting will include a presentation from a downtown planning consultant and discussion by the elected officials.
Village Manager Jason Slowinski said the informal workshop "will hopefully serve as the kickoff meeting to ultimately arriving at a vision for downtown."
"Input from residents and businesses will be an important part of creating a vision for downtown," Slowinski said. "I don't know to what extent it will occur at the workshop meeting, but it will be important as we move forward.
"One of the primary focus areas for (today's) workshop will be to establish a process for how to get to the vision for downtown."
Since 2002, Lake Zurich has had a tax increment financing district in place in an attempt to revitalize downtown.
The special taxing zone was supposed to expire in 2025, but former Gov. Pat Quinn last week signed into law a measure allowing it to extend until 2037 so Lake Zurich does not have to contend with balloon payments on debt.
In a TIF district, property tax revenue is frozen at a certain amount and any additional revenue goes into public improvements rather than to local governments.
Lake Zurich has about $28 million in outstanding debt associated with the long-stalled downtown redevelopment, with roughly $16 million of that debt attributed to property purchases.
Poynton said dated information he noticed on Lake Zurich's official government website related to downtown spurred him to want fresh ideas.
"We still have things on our website that don't represent current conditions," he said. "So, I saw that one day and I said, 'We need to bring things up to date.' Let's have a work session with trustees and get their input as to what they think downtown should look like at this point in time, because, let's face it ... we haven't been very successful in drawing any developers. We're trying to refocus our energies on what is reality and what can we really afford and what makes sense, as opposed to something that is beyond our reach."
Slowinski noted there have been signs of progress downtown. For example, Icon Building Group will complete the final 19 units for the Somerset townhouse subdivision near the village's namesake lake.
In addition, he said, officials in the next month are expected to reveal a preferred developer for a roughly 2-acre site overlooking the lake.
Last year, Plainfield-based Harbour Contractors Inc. decided against proceeding with a project for the same lakefront land.
In October 2013, Lake Zurich's elected officials rejected developer John Breugelmans' offer to pay $10 for the $3.6 million, village-owned property for a four-story building with 66 apartments, along with a restaurant, bar, coffee shop and hair salon.