Published: April 17, 2008 09:47 am      

Fresh focus on city issues

With budget behind him, mayor shifts gears

DANVILLE — With a balanced city budget now passed, Mayor Scott Eisenhauer has identified five issues to next focus on.

The five on his list are: Fischer Theatre, housing, Bresee Tower, Tax Increment Financing districts and redevelopment, and analyzing past city department reorganizations to see what is working and what isn’t and what still needs to be changed.

Fischer Theatre

This will be a top priority during the next six months, Eisenhauer said.

He’ll meet with Vermilion Heritage Foundation officials, who oversee the 1884 landmark, to discuss Phase 1 and Phase 2 engineering studies.

“Once there is confidence in the durability of the structure, and not a complete structural rebuild (needed) … fundraising will escalate and hopefully within this year movement will be made toward future restoration plans,” Eisenhauer said.

Some repairs have been made, and there have been questions about the durability of the columns within the building, he said.

But a more detailed engineering study will determine what needs to be addressed to move forward, he said.

He said the city has some money set aside in the capital budget to help with the engineering study’s cost.

Vermilion Heritage Foundation Board President Carol Nichols said Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc. of Northbrook, a firm that’s worked with historic buildings in the Chicago area, will perform the study. The cost is $16,500 for Phase 1.

Nichols also is publisher of the Commercial-News.

She said the foundation has raised part of the needed funding.

“This is a partnership kind of thing,” she said about working with the city. “We’re not expecting the city to pay for all of it.”

Nichols said the engineering study will look in-depth at all the different building aspects.

“(It will hopefully) reaffirm it’s structurally sound,” she said. “No one has given us any indication that it’s not.”

When San Antonio architect and consultant Killis Almond visited in 2004, he didn’t provide this ex-tensive study.

Phase 2 engineering will involve more cost estimates to fix the building.

“We’ve never gotten to that stage of, ‘this is a hard cost estimate,’” Nichols said. “Our plan is have this first phase done in the next couple of months.”

In the meantime, there will be no one working on the project in a full-time executive director capac-ity.

Nichols said they’d like to have someone do that, but the foundation lacks the money.

Closing the theater and not using it on a regular basis has helped keep utility costs low. Past fundraising largely has supported keeping the building open.

“I think as the feasibility study stated, that building has a great need in the community,” Eisenhauer said. “It can move and should move forward.”

“If we find out there are significant structural issues, then we need to take a long-term look at the (building’s) success,” he added.

Nichols is excited about the building’s prospects.

“We finished the marketing study on it last year,” she said.

She said it’s one of those things nearly everyone in the community would like to see something happen with.

“I think it extends beyond our community,” Nichols said. “We are in such a unique community here. We have five world-renowned entertainers having been in that building.

“We’ve unfortunately lost two of those people already. I would like to see this have something that helps honor those people,” she said.

She said Bobby Short had talked about having to sit in the balcony; Dick Van Dyke would sneak in with friends; Gene Hackman and Jerry Van Dyke would see movies there; and Donald O’Connor per-formed vaudeville on the stage.

The stories are numerous.

“This is something we have to preserve,” Nichols said, not just for plays, movies and other events, but to remember Danville’s great entertainers.

Housing

Eisenhauer said analyzing city housing issues, including Section 8 and public housing, is an ongoing issue.

“We’re continuing to look at the housing issues in the community as a whole and moving forward with short- and long-term goals in the housing in our community,” he said.

He can’t say what the next steps will be.

“The rental registration program went well,” he said.

Now, it’s a matter of looking at the city’s entire housing stock, home repair and rehabilitation programs and funding available — such as through the Community Development Block Grant program, Renaissance Danville, the city’s demolition program — and determining infill for the vacant lots.

“The demolition program is helping us eliminate some of this dilapidated housing stock,” Eisenhauer said.

He said there are just layers of housing issues and programs out there.

Reorganizations

Eisenhauer wants to look at reorganization changes that went into effect four years ago and since to see which have been successful or not.

There will be an in-depth review of each department to see if the city is getting the most bang for taxpayers’ bucks.

“Are we getting everything out of that department we need to? I think that needs to be done every four years,” Eisenhauer said.

For example, he’s happy with the police and fire department chiefs being combined into a public safety director position.

But he said some “tweaking” remains to be done within the police and fire departments.

Bresee Tower

Downtown Danville Inc. and the city continue to work with potential developers.

“It’s extremely promising,” Eisenhauer said.

The lead interested party is from southern Illinois.

Eisenhauer said the city is an interested partner in what happens with the building.

The building is in a Tax Increment Financing district.

“We are at the table to offer incentives,” he said.

He’s hopeful positive developments will occur this year.

The city and county committed almost $15,500 each for an exterior terra cotta assessment of the downtown icon, which has been performed.

Owner First Corbin forced business tenants out and closed the building in April 2005.

The 12-story building was constructed in 1918.

A market study shows the building could support residential condominiums, office condos and first-floor retail.

TIF districts

City officials are developing the city’s third TIF district on the east end around the Danville Area Community College and Veterans Affairs Illiana Health Care System campus area to promote redevelopment.

“Main Street is a main focus right now,” Eisenhauer said.

City officials also are working on projects on the west end of Main Street, too, in the Western Gateway TIF district, including a Courtesy Ford expansion.

Eisenhauer said helping redevelop the two entrance corridors hopefully will lead to and spur more redevelopment in the middle section of Main Street.