The Rochelle City Council unanimously approved a special-use permit Monday for a new car wash next to 450 Coronado Drive in Rochelle.

The parcel slated for the project is a currently vacant, .91-acre lot. The property has planned unit development zoning, which requires a special-use permit for any project planned within it. The city’s planning and zoning commission also unanimously approved a recommendation March 2 for the project to go forward.

Car Wash Brokers of Illinois owner Mike Judge, the developer of the project, spoke to the city council at the March 9 meeting and detailed his concept plans.

The car wash will be in-bay and touch-less automatic, Judge said. There will also be five or six vacuums located at the car wash.

“It will be able to dry one car and start washing another car at the same time to speed up the process,” Judge said. “We will be doing membership programs that allow unlimited washes for an amount of money each month.”

Judge recently built car washes in Kewanee and Galesburg. He said the planned Rochelle development will allow for 20 cars in a line and will not disrupt road traffic on high-traffic days.

Cable

The council unanimously approved a $1.9 million purchase of underground cable at the meeting for its upcoming Centerpoint Drive electrical substation project and other upcoming Rochelle Municipal Utilities electric department infrastructure work.

RMU Superintendent of Electric Operations Blake Toliver said the purchase will include 57,000 feet of 34.5kV line, 25,334 feet of 15kV line and 930 feet of 35kV.

The substation project will break ground this month and will cost north of $20 million total.

It is being done to improve RMU power redundancy, support system resiliency and provide necessary capacity for future commercial and industrial growth in the west side of RMU’s service territory. The new substation project will be RMU’s second in five years. The city completed a $13.8 million substation on Ritchie Road in May 2022.

The project will also see new 34.5kV transmission line on metal poles from the Ritchie Road substation to the Centerpoint Drive substation. The substation is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 and line construction is expected to be completed by mid-2027.

Water

The council held a public hearing on three upcoming RMU water system improvement projects it is planning, including the construction of a new well and treatment plant, water main replacement on Illinois Route 251, and lead and galvanized service line replacement.

Mike Long of engineering firm Willett, Hofmann & Associates made a presentation on each of the projects, for which the city will borrow funds from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The well project is estimated to cost about $4.68 million, while the Illinois Route 251 project is estimated to cost $2 million and the lead service line project is estimated to cost about $4 million, for a total of $10.76 million across all three projects. The loans will see 30% forgiveness on the well and Illinois Route 251 projects and 100% forgiveness on the service line replacement project.

The Illinois Route 251 water main replacement project will take place from December 2026 to August 2027. The new well project will take place from December 2026 to October 2027. The first phase of the water line replacements will take place from December 2026 to July 2027 and the second phase will run from December 2027 to August 2028.

The new well (Well 13) will be located on Technology Parkway north of the Petro Travel Plaza. The two-acre parcel is currently owned by the city and has been sitting vacant for approximately 15 years. The location was chosen to allow for future development and to mitigate pressure issues from dead-end water mains in the area.

The water main replacement work on Illinois Route 251 is being done in advance of the state’s future reconstruction of Illinois Route 251 on the north side of town.

A recent state program required municipalities to assess and eventually replace lead and galvanized water service lines. The city found five lead and 267 galvanized service lines needing replacement in Rochelle.

Equipment

The council unanimously approved purchases of two pieces of equipment for the city’s street department at the meeting. The first was the $93,073 purchase of a new Bobcat E60 R2-Series Compact Excavator from Bobcat of Dixon that will be used for a variety of infrastructure maintenance tasks, City Public Works Director Tim Isley said.

The second purchase was a new Kubota M6 Tractor from Johnson Tractor of Rochelle for $107,682 that will replace an existing 2010 tractor. The tractor will be used for tasks such as mowing, snow removal and loading supplies and material.

Liquor licenses

The council voted unanimously to amend its liquor license code to reduce annual liquor license fees for nonprofit organizations to $100.

The city has three nonprofits that hold liquor licenses: the Rochelle Moose Lodge, Rochelle VFW Post 3878 and the Vince Carney Community Theater’s Lincoln Arts Center. The Moose Lodge and the VFW previously paid $1,200 per year each and the Lincoln Arts Center paid $250 per year. Refunds will be paid to the three organizations for the difference between the amount they already paid for their 2026 license and the new fee.

“A couple of these groups have struggled for a while,” Mayor John Bearrows said. “We wanted to treat them all the same and help all three of them.”