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The city of Aurora is looking at buying some properties along Bilter Road near the Chicago Premium Outlets mall.
Steve Lord / The Beacon-News
The city of Aurora is looking at buying some properties along Bilter Road near the Chicago Premium Outlets mall.
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City of Aurora officials are looking at spending up to $10 million to buy nine properties along Bilter Road near Chicago Premium Outlets.

The move would continue an effort by the city to assemble developable land for economic development in what city officials refer to as the Farnsworth Corridor. It could be a spot for development of a hotel and convention center that would include a new home for Hollywood Casino-Aurora.

“We’ve spoken a lot about downtown and what needs to be done there,” said David Dibo, Aurora’s Economic Development director. “We have the Route 59 plan now, we look at Lake Street, Route 25 … but if you look at the properties around the outlet mall, you can really see how under-utilized the Farnsworth Corridor is.”

Dibo, speaking at a recent City Council Finance Committee meeting, said the corridor “has not been what it could be” despite the fact that city traffic studies show more than 100,000 cars a day travel along Farnsworth. It has an interchange with Interstate 88 that the state improved a few years ago for the outlet mall traffic. Some eight million people visit the outlet mall each year, he said.

“This opportunity is here now,” Dibo said of the chance to buy the properties along Bilter. “The idea is to do some intelligent planning.”

The purchase uses Invest Aurora, the city’s non-profit redevelopment arm, as essentially a broker to buy the land, although the city will actually end up paying for and owning the property. Alex Alexandrou, the city’s chief management officer, said using Invest Aurora as a go-between actually helps keep the price down.

Aldermen on the Finance Committee recently voted 5-0 to endorse the idea of the arrangement between Invest Aurora and the city, and to recommend buying the land. The City Council Committee of the Whole will consider the arrangement Tuesday.

Under that arrangement, the city would pay $10 million to nine property owners to buy nine parcels of land totaling 50 acres along the south side of Bilter Road. The properties are just north of the outlet mall.

The properties have been a matter of speculation for the city going back to when Tom Weisner was mayor. At one time, the property owners along there banded together and marketed their parcels together through one broker, but in the past year or so went back to marketing the parcels individually. The city owns a parcel along there already that it bought about three years ago, and even considered using that land to create another back entrance to the outlet mall.

Dibo said the property is zoned Office, Retail and Industrial, although most of the uses along there currently are residential. He also said the price comes down to about $5 a square foot.

“There is very little land in the western suburbs at that price,” he said.

Alexandrou said the property is somewhat unique, but called the potential purchase “one of the most important acquisitions since the outlet mall itself.”

“It’s building upon the success of the outlet mall,” he said.

The city has talked to Hollywood Casino about possibly relocating there, and a bill that recently passed the General Assembly now allows casinos to relocate off the waterways they have previously been tethered to. Hollywood Casino and city officials lobbied in Springfield to get that legislation, and Aurora representatives downstate had a lot to do with sponsoring and pushing it.

Alexandrou said both Hollywood Casino and Simon, owner of the outlet mall, have been very interested in talking to the city about the future of the land along Bilter.

The city also recently purchased the former Motel 6 and Fox Valley Inn properties right on Farnsworth, which are next to a parcel the city already owns. That land also has been discussed as a home for a hotel and convention center.

Overall, city officials said it is a positive step to assemble the different properties to keep development momentum in the Farnsworth Corridor.

“The vision here is, we’re now at a point where we need to take the action step,” Alexandrou said.

To pay for the land, the city envisions opening up another $10 million line of credit with a local bank, similar to two, $10 million lines of credit it approved recently and is in the midst of setting up with Old Second National Bank and Fifth Third Bank.

The previous lines of credit were to help finance redevelopment incentives the city has committed to downtown and on the far East Side.

Martin Lyons, Aurora’s chief financial officer, said the lines of credit are considered short-term financing and are to be paid back by private money when development occurs. He said with the land purchase along Bilter, while future development would pay the money back to the city, the city is still buying something that “has value to it right away.”

Lyons said he has prepared a report for the City Council that summarizes the city’s current debt – even non-development related debt like public safety pensions and retirees healthcare – that he would present soon.

“For this investment (Bilter Road), our full goal is to have it paid back by private sources,” Lyons said.

John Curley, Aurora’s chief development officer, said the Bilter Road purchase is “time sensitive,” and the city needs to “beat the speculators” who might be interested. Buying the land also gives the city a chance to look at expanding that section of Bilter Road to four lanes. Currently, that section of Bilter is the only two-lane area left between Mitchell Road and Eola Road, and becomes sort of a traffic funnel.

Aldermen on the Finance Committee supported the plan with their votes in favor, with Ald. Scheketa Hart-Burns, 7th Ward, saying, “Let’s make it happen.”

“This has been an area in the forefront of thinking for a while,” said Ald. Robert O’Connor, at large, Finance Committee chairman. “In terms of long-range thinking, this was a natural.”