Major Batavia stakeholders, business leaders, and officials representing the city of Batavia met Thursday morning at the Covenant Living at the Holmstad facility, located at 700 W. Fabyan Parkway, for the annual Mayor’s Breakfast, sponsored by the Batavia Chamber of Commerce.
The focus of the roughly 90-minute meeting was to give the more than 150 guests that attended the chance to network as well as listen to an expanded speaker program that this year included representatives from the park and local school district as well as the library, followed by keynote speaker Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke, who offered his annual state-of-the-city address.
President and CEO of the Batavia Chamber of Commerce Margaret Perreault spoke before the event which began earlier than usual at 7:20 a.m. this year and said “the school district and park district and the library all have strategic plans right now.”
“Because of that – it makes sense for the leads to be able to talk about what they think are the key issues – things they’ve had successes with the last year – and what they want to share with the community in the upcoming year,” Perreault said.
Tom Kim, superintendent of Batavia Public School District 101, led off the program, followed by Allison Niemela, executive director of the Batavia Park District and finally Josephine Tucci, of the Batavia Public Library.
Kim stressed that the district has continued to have success by sticking to its long-range plans.
“We’ve shown growth year after year. The district has been living day-to-day and year by year by our strategic plan that was approved a few years ago and we have held religiously to that and used it as our north star to guide the work in our district,” he said. “I feel it is working – we didn’t put it on the shelf – it’s a living and working thing.”
Niemela said the “Park District realizes there are two epidemics happening in communities today and we take a serious approach to it.”
“Those issues are loneliness and obesity and the park district is concerned about people’s mental and physical health,” she said. “To address those issues, we are putting programs in place that connect people emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We’re addressing obesity by placing free exercise equipment in our parks.”
Tucci noted that the library’s strategic plan includes having the facility “rejuvenated the past two years to revitalize things that are happening in the library.”
“We have a new website that’s coming out this month and we’re getting our roof replaced and have a new strategic plan and we’re gearing up for a major renovation of the interior of the library,” she said. “My focus is how we are preparing for future generations and serving the community.”
Schielke’s remarks followed, about 40 minutes into the program, and once again included a variety of photos taken in Batavia that displayed development in the past year as well as projects that are pending.
The longstanding mayor highlighted some shortfalls this year, including a couple of capital projects that won’t be funded as yet.
“One of the news tidbits out there is that I have been informed by the Kane County Department of Transportation that their plan to rebuild the intersection at [Route 31] Batavia Avenue and Fabyan by the Holmstad facility — the money has been reduced, so they are not going to be able to do that intersection this year,” he said. “It’s kind of a disappointment because it’s an intersection where we have a lot of accidents and it needs to be redone.”
Schielke added that he also “received a call about [civil engineers] that are not going to remove any of the dams” along the Fox River.
“We’ve got that old broken dam that’s going to be there for another year or two and again, this is, in some degree, federal money coming down to the state and the state that says, ‘Well, we’re going to take them [dams] all out from Carpentersville down to Yorkville but because of what’s happened with the money right now, we’re not going to do anymore with the dams’,” he said.
Schielke said at the present time, “anything that is dependent on federal or state money is a real fly in the air with people wondering it is ever going to come down kind of thing.”
“There’s a lot of projects – I talk to other cities and they have the same problem going with something they’ve planned for three to five years and now they are being told there’s no money,” he said.
New housing, particularly with townhome units and apartments, continues to be strong,” Schielke reported. He said that “between 2022 and 2026, we will have added about 800-plus new residential units to the city of Batavia.”
“We have an apartment thing nearly Holy Cross Church with 96 units and townhomes being built at McKee Street and Van Nortwick Avenue,” he said.
Regarding local business growth, Schielke said “there are some big questions” including an empty parcel at Prairie and Wilson in a mall area where a new parking lot has been added and where the owner has supposedly “repainted and redone the building.”
“We made the owner put in a new parking lot and there is supposed to be an upscale convenience store which may be moving in,” he said. “We’ve got a big one going with a bakery at Van Buren and Webster and downtown we have the new Warehouse 55 that just came in.”
In terms of vacant storefronts, Schielke said there are probably less than 15 empty units throughout the town and that overall, the state of the local economy is good.
“I think things are pretty good – we have one of the lower tax rates in the region and our sales tax is up because of new businesses moving in,” he said. “That’s not a big issue at the moment. The theme this year is that we are dealing with a lot of growth and we have a data center we’re negotiating with and a lot of stuff going on that’s very positive. I talk to other mayors in the region and they’re very envious of all that’s been going on in Batavia, St. Charles, and Geneva.”