By Ted Schnell • BocaJump | Feb. 21, 2012
Two weeks ago, the Elgin City Council listened as Downtown Neighborhood Association Executive Director Tonya Hudson detailed the organization’s economic development successes for 2011.
She pointed out how the organization had focused on creating its own downtown customer base, focused on innovation industries and worked to capitalize on real estate opportunities. She spelled out the dynamics of each of those key areas, and how the Downtown Neighborhood Association leveraged those into array of successes over the past 12 months.
On Wednesday, the council is expected to take final action on renewing a purchase of services contract with the Downtown Neighborhood Association for its economic development efforts. The item is on the council’s consent agenda, which means it is considered “routine and noncontroversial” and therefore likely to pass without discussion. As part of the agreement, the organization will work on economic development in the downtown area, even as the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce is expected to conduct similar activities on a broader, citywide scale.
Two weeks ago, members of the council praised the Downtown Neighborhood Association for its foresight in seeking to separate itself from direct city subsidies. Initially, that move begins this year, with the lion’s share of the agency’s funding — $120,000 — to come from the Center City tax increment financing district. By law, that money must be used to improve the district, and state laws spell out how TIF funds may be used. City officials have said funding an organization like the Downtown Neighborhood Association is one of those allowed uses. The remaining $15,000 for the organization will come from the city’s general fund.
The city had just come off a budget process that saw continued cuts as well as new fees and taxes — and the prospect of continued losses of future federal funding. That has city leaders concerned that local agencies and nonprofits may be too reliant on city financial assistance at a time when the city is looking hard at how best to meet its own needs. During the buildup to the city’s budget deliberations, the Downtown Neighborhood Association suggested tapping into TIF monies for organizational funding, and eventually through the creation of a special assessment district beginning in 2016.
But Hudson’s presentation of two weeks ago is worth noting again all the same: By many accounts, Elgin’s Center City, which was hit hard by both the recession and a downtown infrastructure project that has yet to be completed, is showing some positive economic signs.
Hudson boasted to the City Council of the 41 businesses in the downtown area that provide a “workplace population” of people who support area businesses at lunch, for example. The Harvest Market helps to boost the daytime population, while efforts to get people living downtown — at Fountain Square, River Park Place, Center City Apartments, the under-development Elgin Artspace project, as well as encouraging the development of upper floors in the downtown area into loft apartments — have had an impact on downtown Elgin as a population center.
The chambers efforts at focusing on “innovation industries” — the arts and technology — are bearing fruit, Hudson explained. Companies that have or are moving into the downtown include FutureLink IT with 13 full-time equivalent employees, A&R Global Logistics with 29 employees, 4M World Technologies with seven employees, Imago Studios, which represents 10 start-up businesses, and the Elgin Technology Center in the Elgin Tower Building, which is incubating 11 start-ups.
The arts focus has drawn or is drawing such businesses as Fat Cat Custom Guitars & Repair, Fat Cat Music Lessons, Elgin Knit Works, Spacetaste Gallery, The Annex Antiques, and Rediscover Records.
The Downtown Neighborhood Association’s economic development focus on real estate opportunities also has generated activity, Hudson said. She attributed the agency’s efforts to facilitating $1.25 million in real estate acquisitions. At the same time, the group has identified 40,000 square feet of vacant space.
Finally, Hudson pointed out the steps the Downtown Neighborhood Association takes when working with prospective businesses to ensure an organized process that not only helps decide whether to move or open in Elgin, but also to conduct property tours, site selection, pre-inspections, navigating the city’s licensing and permitting procedures, and even up to the opening of the new business.
