Des Plaines mayor questions public safety complex funding

Des Plaines Mayor Tony Arredia has one question for city planners pitching a new public safety building and new city hall downtown: How are you going to pay for it?

Arredia said the city's idea to combine a new police headquarters and new fire administration center in one building might sound good, but he questions its feasibility.

"I just ask them the question: Where are you getting the money?" said the mayor, who leaves office next spring.

City Manager Jason Bajor this week said there's potential a new city hall would be built adjacent to a new public safety building. A new city hall would allow the city to modernize its current space by adding public meeting rooms, he said.

Bajor wouldn't go into detail about the property eyed for this project since it's under discussion in closed session.

Other city officials have identified the downtown block at Miner and Lee streets that includes the former Masonic Temple and The Choo Choo Restaurant. There is also a building at 1440 Miner St. next to city hall that includes storefronts and apartments. All the properties are included in a downtown special taxing district the city created in 1986 to spur redevelopment. The tax-increment financing district will expire in 2021 due to an extension that aldermen approved.

Choo Choo restaurant owner Jean Paxton questions whether the restaurant would survive a proposed physical move to a new site on a parking lot the city owns at 520 S. River Road in the downtown.

"I'm not an architect. We would certainly look into it but if a report came back and said it couldn't (survive a move) I wouldn't be surprised by that kind of report," Bajor said.

Michael Conlan, the city's community and economic director, has said moving the building a few blocks by truck would be a public relations boon for both the city and the Choo Choo since it would generate plenty of media buzz. He shepherded the move of a 150-year-old train depot when he worked in Minnesota.

Bajor added the city would be committed to keeping the Choo Choo in town.

Police are currently based in a 34-year-old building next to city hall, 1420 Miner St., while the top fire department officials work out of the River Road fire station. The 911 communications department also would relocate from its city hall office to the new center under the latest proposal for the public safety complex.