No indoor amusement center, but U-46 interested in Elgin property
Plans to open an indoor amusement center on Chicago Street in Elgin fell through, but Elgin Area School District U-46 is interested in turning the property into a Family Welcome Center and remote bus lot.
Texas-based Urban Air Trampoline Park previously said it planned to open sometime in spring 2017 on the 10-acre site at 1019 E. Chicago St., which includes a large parking lot and a 95,521-square-foot building that housed Sherman Health Resource Center until 2011.
It appears no work was done by Urban Air on the property, which was listed for auction by SVN AuctionWorks with a minimum bid of $2.5 million plus 4 percent buyer's premium. The auction scheduled to end last week was canceled because a prebid offer was accepted, and there is a sale contract pending, SVN President Diana Peterson said.
She declined to name the prospective buyer, but U-46 CEO Tony Sanders said in a Facebook post Friday that district officials placed a bid on the property and will ask the board to approve it.
The school board Monday night discussed spending $4 million to buy the property, which the district has been leasing for 10 years to park bus drivers' personal vehicles. Officials plan to move the district's fleet of buses there as early as this fall, which is expected to save $1 million yearly.
"Not only will this be better for our bus drivers, the savings from not having to run the shuttles every day will cover the investment in the building within the next few years," Sanders said in a Facebook post.
A vote on the sale is pending.
The building can be turned into a Family Welcome Center that would consolidate language testing, early childhood screening and student registration, Sanders said. There are also opportunities to use the building for pre-K classrooms in the long term, he said.
The city council's committee of the whole approved zoning for the indoor amusement center plans in December 2016. Urban Air had planned to lease it to a franchisee listed as the David P. Frayer and Kendal L. Frayer Revocable Trust. An attorney for the trust didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Advocate Sherman Hospital sold the property in late 2016 or early 2017, spokeswoman Jennifer Benson confirmed.
Urban Air CEO Michael Browning did not respond to requests for comment.