Old Kane Co. jail site more likely hotel than arboretum

A vote taken by the Kane County Board Tuesday suggests the old jail and youth center site may have a better chance of looking like a model that already sits in the county's development office than it does of ever resembling the Morton Arboretum or an outdoor performance venue like Ravinia.

The board voted 18-6 in favor of a resolution that endorses a plan that envisions a hotel, commercial, office and high density residential use for the future of the 26-acre site on Fabyan Parkway east of Route 31 in Geneva. The county currently owns the land, but the vote will act as a symbolic standing ovation for Geneva changing the zoning on the site to accommodate the potential uses on that list.

There is no direct mention of endorsing a redevelopment that would involve the arboretum or performance venue idea first brought to the county by board member Phil Lewis, of St. Charles. Lewis, along with several of the other five county board members who voted against the endorsement tried to alter it in three different ways to remove any specific suggestion of what should be built at the site. All three attempts showed them to be in the minority and on the losing end of the vote.

"I do not think that this board should set forth a resolution about the end use of this site," Lewis said.

Board member Deborah Allan, of Elgin, took her concerns one step further in suggesting the county's endorsement Tuesday sets in motion a chain of events that means Lewis' vision is already on the trash pile. She referenced the existence of a scale model of the Fabyan Parkway site in the county's development office that is already complete with a hotel and other pieces of the redevelopment envisioned by the resolution.

"The ball has already started to roll," Allan said. "When you set something in place, it just keeps rolling."

County board members who voted for the resolution said it does nothing more than support a zoning change that increases the value of the land if the county ever decides to sell it. The resolution creates more options rather than taking any away, they said. However, several county board members expressed a willingness to return the land back to the property tax rolls to the benefit of Geneva, which has tolerated the site as tax-free government property for a long time.

The county board must take many more votes before any substantive change occurs at the site, meaning redevelopment is still a very long way away.