Geneva aldermen like Cetron Place idea

Geneva aldermen like a plan to put houses and apartments where a vacuum-tube factory once stood.

They voted 9-0 at a committee meeting Monday in favor of a request to rezone parcels at the ex-Cetron site at Seventh, Richards, State and Peyton streets, from residential, business and industrial uses to a business planned-unit-development district.

They also approved a conceptual plan for 16 houses, six townhouses and a 20-unit apartment building that would have stores on the first floor.

Aldermen will take a binding vote at a council meeting, possibly as early as May 7.

The Cetron Place plan is a far cry from the controversial five-story, 202-apartment building another developer proposed in 2014. The developer withdrew that plan when the plan commission refused to add the site to a list of approved places where a mixed-use building could be constructed in the downtown. Many people who lived nearby protested the plan.

But on Monday, Carole Ellermeier, who lives on the 100 block of North Richards Street, said she was "delighted to give my stamp of approval to this development."

She said it is a "good transition" from the houses in her neighborhood to the commercial buildings of the downtown.

Karis Capital LLC is the owner; Streetscape Development is the designer.

Jake Finley of Karis said he expects the one-bedroom apartments to rent for $1,400 to $1,500 a month, the houses to sell in the mid- to high $600,000s, and the townhouses to sell in the low $500,000s.

Cetron made electronics equipment, including vacuum tubes. on the site. The factory shut in the mid-1980s, and was razed in 2015.