Two of five Des Plaines special taxing districts operating in deficit
Des Plaines city officials Thursday night are expected to approve spending roughly $2.75 million to replace sidewalks, streetlights and improve landscaping/irrigation in downtown next year.
The expense is part of the city's nearly $114.8 million proposed total budget for expenditures in 2012. That includes about $57 million in general fund expenditures.
At a recent budget hearing, city officials reviewed the health of the city's five special taxing districts.
Two of tax increment financing, or TIF, districts are operating at a deficit, with shortfalls being covered out of the city's general fund and through revenues from downtown TIF District No. 1. That TIF is expected to have a surplus of about $3.2 million at the end of 2012, officials said.
TIF District No. 1 also is expected to fund numerous downtown improvements next year, including sidewalk upgrades.
“Currently, they are sort of a mismatch of different brick pavers,” Acting City Manager Jason Slowinski told the city council. “Many of them, in certain locations, are trip hazards.”
Slowinski said the brick pavers would be replaced with concrete sidewalks, perhaps featuring ornamental paver bricks between the curb and a couple of feet into the sidewalk. The concrete sidewalks would be easier to maintain and plow in winter months, he added.
Des Plaines Mayor Marty Moylan said city staff should reconsider using brick pavers anywhere in downtown.
“A few years ago, we authorized reconstruction on some of the pavers ... they were repaired and they're still popping up,” he said. “Our weather, no matter what you do, is not conducive to pavers.”
The areas being considered for sidewalk improvements are the oldest sections of downtown, including in front of City Hall, the Des Plaines Theater and the rest of Miner Street, Ellinwood Avenue, and between Lee and Pearson streets. The walks originally were built in 1985.
Repaving the entire downtown area may be overambitious, 6th Ward Alderman Mark Walsten said.
“We might want to consider doing something with Miner Street, Ellinwood ... maybe we can bring this down a little bit,” he said.
The design and engineering portion of the downtown improvement project itself is expected to cost $500,000, said Tim Oakley, director of public works and engineering. The city council must still approve each phase of the bidding process, he added.
Other proposed expenditures include $500,000 for interior remodeling of the downtown Metra train station and $175,000 for retrofitting lighting at the Metropolitan Square parking garage.
The train station remodel would involve combining the existing coffee shop and community cab area into a larger space where a national coffee vendor, such as Starbucks or Caribou Coffee, could operate.
“Right now, we have a glorified closet, which really doesn't produce all that much in revenue for that footprint,” Finance Committee Chairman Matt Bogusz said. “It's incumbent on us to make sure that we're making investments. The money is being generated in this fund for the sole purpose of investment in downtown.”
Ward 4 Alderman Dick Sayad said with the proposed downtown projects, the city will be eating up a lot of the revenues in TIF District No. 1.
“I'm uncomfortable with that. To spend half a million to remodel that place, when we have other issues that the city has ... I don't know how bad this station needs it. This amount of money is too high.”