Batavia considers incentive to lure Blue Goose Market
Batavia is hiring a consultant to help it determine how much, if any, financial incentive it could or should provide to get the Blue Goose Market to open a store in the downtown.
Aldermen Tuesday gave a preliminary approval to spending $12,500 to hire Ehlers and Associates Inc. of Chicago to analyze the request made by the owners of the Batavia Plaza shopping center to put the grocery store where a Walgreens was. Batavia Enterprises Inc. owns the plaza at 138 W. Wilson St.
“A food store would be a home run,” said Gerald Dempsey, chairman of the board of BEI.
Ehlers will determine if the amount BEI is suggesting — which has not been made public — is warranted, and whether the city has the funds available.
BEI Vice President Austin Dempsey said the firm is still working with the Blue Goose owners to determine how much space it would want, which could be as much as 20,000 square feet. The former Walgreens is 12,654 square feet, he said. The building could be expanded into its service alley in the rear, or a second story could be added to the space, he said.
The Blue Goose Fruit Store was founded in St. Charles in 1928. Its current iteration is at Route 31 and Illinois Street in downtown St. Charles.
Batavia Plaza is in tax-increment financing district 3. But city officials have already determined that the TIF 3 fund may not have enough money in it to provide incentives, and so are considering transferring money from the fund for TIF district 1. Transfers are allowed between adjacent TIF districts.
In a TIF district, property tax payments to government bodies are frozen at the beginning level for as long as 23 years. Any incremental increase in property taxes during that time is funneled into a fund, controlled by the city, that is to be used to pay for work that leads to an increase in value of property in the district. Batavia has used money from the TIF 1 and TIF 3 funds for a variety of projects, including improving streets and sidewalks throughout the downtown. It also helped pay for some costs associated with the construction of the new Walgreens that opened in March, on another property BEI owns.