What's next for Kane Co. jail site?
One man's trash could be another man's treasure at the site of the old Kane County jail and youth center on Fabyan Parkway. It's just a question of whether that treasure will belong to Kane County or a developer.
Kane County Board members debated the fate of the 26-acre site Tuesday. The site is only part of a larger 700-acre campus of government-owned land that includes a golf course and two landfills.
Many of the county buildings on the old campus are gone or are in the process of being demolished. What will remain is a prime development parcel once valued at about $8 million.
There's no doubt the city the land sits in, Geneva, wants the site developed for the benefit of its tax coffers. There's also no doubt the site will be developed. All county board members agree on that.
But two plans are on the table with distinctly different visions for the best use of the site. And it's already creating a dividing line between county board members.
Some elected officials indicated they wanted to stick with the plan the board had talked about in the past but never locked in with a vote. That plan involves selling the site to create a mixed-use development including a hotel, a banquet facility, condos and minimal commercial development.
"This is not a place for commercial development," said Kane County Development Director Phil Bus. "To suggest that this has great commercial potential is not the case."
Indeed, the competing proposal is the extreme opposite of commercial development, attempting to create Kane County's version of several Chicago-area attractions all rolled into one.
Taking the entire 700 acres of government-owned land at the site into account, the plan would add an outdoor performance space (like Ravinia), an Arboretum (like the Chicago Botanic Garden), and a "Kane Henge Observatory" using Settler's Hill Landfill, one of the tallest land masses in all of northern Illinois.
The plan would also reconfigure the existing golf course on the site to have the ninth hole end at the clubhouse.
"It's an important element that can tie the whole site together," said county board member Phil Lewis, of St. Charles. Lewis pitched the more grand design in cooperation with colleagues from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he teaches. "I'm afraid that if we sell it off . . . that we don't capture the potential of the site."
Board members questioned the county's financial ability to pull off such a design, but Lewis estimated it would take only about $6 million.
The ultimate decision on whether or not to sell the site or keep it under the county's control is months away, but the county board must decide in the next couple of months if now is the right time to secure a zoning change with Geneva to allow significant development changes to the site.
Next: Recreation plan combines several attractions