City of Princeton issued the following announcement on Jan. 28.
The city of Princeton is not ready to give up on the idea of a sports complex, despite local developers shelving the project idea at the end of last year.
During Monday's city council meeting, Mayor Joel Quiram announced that an ad hoc committee will begin meeting to explore the viability of this project in Princeton.
In 2018, Tiskilwa couple Nathan and Lindsey Koning introduced their plans of a sports complex that included multiple playing fields and an indoor dome to the city council with intentions of completing it by 2020 in the city's Logistics Park, north of Interstate 80.
However, at the end of last year, before construction of the project ever took off, the Konings announced through the city that they planned to put the project on hold at this time.
It’s apparent the city doesn’t want to see that project go away, and so committee members will discuss what would need to be done to make a sports complex happen.
“We think the idea is a really good idea and the developer thought it was a good idea and he put a lot of money into this to see how this would work,” Quiram said.
Committee members Michael Stutzke, Rick Clary, Tom Tester, Eric May and new Princeton Chamber of Commerce Director Autumn Kirk will be getting together to talk more about it and will report to the city council.
A second committee will also begin meeting next month to discuss needed improvements at the Princeton Train Depot campus.
“They’re going to be looking at everything,” Quiram said.
From repaving the parking lot to improvements to the actual depot. Quiram added he would like to see the bricks torn up from Euclid Avenue incorporated into a project at the train depot.
The committee will be made up of Princeton Police Chief Tom Kammerer, Tyler McCombs, Jeff Bystry, Rachel Skaggs, Phillip Erickson, Michael Stutzke, David Gugerty and Nick Gorogianis.
This committee will also report to the city council.
City's sales tax increase for street improvements has collected $99,000
Princeton City Manager Theresa Wittenauer reported on Monday that as of Jan. 13, $99,000 had been collected from the city’s one-quarter percent sales tax increase that went into effect last year after voters passed the referendum in April 2019.
Following Monday’s meeting, Quiram said the city plans to put $300,000 toward street and parking lot improvement projects this year using that money along with monies from the Motor Fuel Tax fund. This year’s projects are yet to be determined. The projects will be discussed during the city’s annual budget meeting in March.
Quiram said the city usually budgets only $150,000 for street improvements, so this year, the city will be working with double the funds, which means more projects or larger-scale improvement projects.
Quiram said the city is also working on updating the city’s website to include a tracker for people to see how much sales tax is being collected for these projects. The tax increase sunsets in three years.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Princeton
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