MINOOKA – Stepping in for Mayor Pat Brennan, who was out ill, Minooka Administrative Director Dan Duffy shared the village's highlights of 2016 at the annual State of the Village address Wednesday in the village community room.
Duffy started off by saying that under Brennan's leadership, with hardworking employees and trustees and new investments made in Minooka, "I can honestly say the state of the village is very strong."
One of the biggest accomplishments in the past year was securing funds for the McEvilly Road Bike Path so work can begin this year on the project that's been 10 years in the making. The village obtained an additional $800,000 in federal grant money in December with the help of the Will County Governmental League. Assistance also came from Grundy and Will counties to push forward with the project.
An 85-room, extended-stay Marriott hotel was approved by the village for Minooka BBR developers, who also brought the Hampton Inn the previous year. The new facility represents a $14 million investment in the village along with employment of local tradesmen and permanent jobs for residents.
The first phase of a 32-acre restricted development began with Heritage Woods of Minooka building an assisted-living facility, the first of its kind in Minooka. The $18 million investment will produce 54 new jobs in the health care industry, Duffy said.
The Heritage Woods group has applied to the Illinois Department of Housing to build a memory-loss facility adjacent to the assisted-living facility.
PACCAR Inc. broke ground last spring on its site at the northwest corner of Interstate 80 and Ridge Road, which will be its Chicago-area resale site for fleet trucks. This represents a $10 million investment in Minooka that will bring jobs to the community.
Other projects approved in 2016 are for Liberty Property Trust, with a 52-acre development for a possible expansion of Grainger; Molto Properties, which recently bought the Rockefeller site for a build-to-suit facility; OPUS, which has begun to fulfill its annexation agreement terms to install water and sewer operations along Holt Road; and AirLiqui, formerly Airgas, which opened its $40 million facility in October.
"The projects I mentioned have roughly an estimated investment [value] in the village of over $90 million," Duffy said. "That's what I call economic development."
Minooka's building department granted 389 building permits, 40 of which were new home builds, keeping up Minooka's four-year running average of 30 to 40 homes built each year.
Of those permits, three were granted for church projects, including the new Village Christian Church on Bell Road, the expansion of Minooka Bible Church and the new parish center for St. Mary's Catholic Church.
On the financial side, the village saved $353,150 by refunding 2008 series bonds during 2016.
As of the end of fiscal 2016, Minooka had about seven months of reserves on hand, which is above auditor standards, giving the village a strong bond rating of AA-.
At the end of 2016, Minooka had $3.3 million in unencumbered funds in the general fund, and the village anticipates ending fiscal 2017 with a $120,000 to $130,000 surplus.
Public works replaced 8,500 square feet of sidewalks, replanted 114 parkway trees, completed the first assessment of the wastewater collection system and completed repairs to the village's infrastructure.
Duffy highlighted accomplishments of the police department, including fundraising events for Special Olympics and food drive collections for local pantries, as well as public education and crime prevention instruction for the entire community, from students to seniors.
He also recognized several police officers for life-saving incidents that didn't make the headlines but he said deserved recognition.
While other communities were stagnant during the recession, Minooka was building homes, Duffy said. The village renegotiated annexation agreements with developers to spur economic growth and investment in the community.
Minooka encouraged new and existing businesses to invest with aggressive economic development packages, which brought in new commerce and industry.
"We aggressively recruited new sectors of our economy to help diversify and build our tax base," Duffy said. "All of this is not just rhetoric, not just promises, but actual results."