June 22, 2025
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City designates River Edge development zone

By Christopher Breach
Traffic travels along Route 45 past Shapiro Developmental Center on June 11, 2025. Seventy acres of unutilized land on the south end of Shapiro's campus has been tabbed for the state’s new “Surplus to Success” program.

Traffic travels along Route 45 past Shapiro Developmental Center on June 11, 2025. (Tiffany Blanchette)

In an effort to spark some residential housing development, the Kankakee City Council approved an ordinance designating an area within the corporate limits as a redevelopment zone.

The ordinance was unanimously approved at Monday’s City Council meeting, and it creates the River Edge redevelopment zone and provides incentives to redevelopment of property within the zone.

Mayor Chris Curtis said the measure is a key component to drive new housing units in the city.

“Housing construction costs are very expensive for new construction, so any tool or any little incentive that we can give a residential developer to build new homes in the city of Kankakee is going to be needed,” he said. “And this will be a piece that would be a critical part of it.”

Curtis added that it’s critical for a lot of the downtown development that the city has going on.

“I believe we’ll be able to incorporate this as we work through the Economic Development Committee to hopefully maybe incorporate this with some of the residential housing goals that we have,” he said.

The River Edge redevelopment zone includes an area from Interstate 57 on the east to the west side of Kankakee and from Grinnell Road on the north all the way south to the airport.

“It also includes Shapiro and some areas like that,” Curtis said. “So it’s a pretty large encompassed area. Most of your commercial and industrial areas, and it’s really gonna be a big factor for commercial areas.”

The redevelopment zone designation needs approval from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development, and Curtis said that’s expected to be done by Aug. 1.

The redevelopment zone gives economic incentives for builders by waiving sales tax on building materials that they purchase for new homes, reduced or exemption of building permit fees for the new homes and real estate taxes can be laddered in over the course of five or six years, depending on each municipality.

“We’re able to use it now for some residential components too, with some real estate taxes and things like that, which is a big deal for us,” Curtis said. “But it really helps for downtown development, like where you see the Dustin Kooy developments, the Josh Jeffers developments. ... They can use them on their office buildings.”