©2011 Galesburg Broadcasting Co.
| City Council Approves College Housing Complex |
The Galesburg City Council has unanimously approved an apartment complex primarily for Carl Sandburg College students, but also for so-called market-rate renters.
Aldermen Monday night voted to approve a redevelopers agreement with Quad Cities-based Oxbow Development for the building of "The Villas" at C-S-C, and they also okayed the rezoning of the land it will sit on: the former Regency Hotel on North Henderson Street.
But questions remained about whether or not the property would ever become low-income housing if students didn't fill it, especially after it was learned that a 25-percent partner in the project, Mecca Companies, has specialized in low-income housing.
Oxbow head Tim Baldwin says he'll never let the complex become low-income.
"We're the controlling partner, and you see there's no representative from Mecca here and there hasn't been throughout this process," he says. "They are a subordinate position in this partnership, and it's just by chance we are together in this project."
Baldwin says Mecca, as it turns out, has been getting less and less work developing low-income housing, so they're essentially moving on to something else, and he says the business plans of the two companies meshed well.
Aldermen also continued to express concerns about the safety of the area around South Lake Storey Road and improvements that may need to be made there at some point, and one said he was voting for the project anyway, though he questioned how Oxbow would get about a million dollars over the years in Tax Increment Financing District money for the project. |
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| 10 04 11 by Newsroom |
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