There has been much speculation about what would replace the “old courthouse.”
Unfortunately, this property is in a trust and can not be sold and has to be used by the public. Some say the old courthouse should never have been demolished and could have been utilized instead of being leveled. Some say there is a secret plan to build one large building to house both the Joliet and Will County governments. We have seen drawings of this, but no further progress has been made, and quite frankly, we don’t need another building. See the diagrams that were posted by the executive office before any talks were approved by the board.
The county currently owns two vacant buildings and the county hasn’t grown to facilitate buying another. Walk through the county building any time during the day and the offices are half empty and there are virtually no residents walking around. With so much being done online now, the building we have should suffice. If there was any sense to it, we would build a campus on Laraway Road next to the other buildings we have out there.
Considering all this, I suggested that we build an outdoor venue to bring people downtown. Even though it’s not the county’s responsibility to rejuvenate the area, I feel that we should invest in a project that will benefit the residents. I sit on the committee that oversees the demolishing and replacement of the “old courthouse.” I proposed an outdoor venue; see the video here – https://www.facebook.com/LoganforWillCounty/videos/858493349493048 Something very similar to the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago. I would add food trucks to the west end and have a company in charge of booking FREE concerts. In the winter, we would freeze the area and have an ice rink, the only outdoor one around. Imagine having your wedding outdoors? Did someone say farmer’s markets?
The county board passed a resolution to go out and get proposals (RFPs) to have this designed and built. In the meantime, we also passed a resolution to have the area fenced off as there are many tripping hazards surrounding the green area and we do not want any resident falling and being injured before we can even start construction.
I want to see the costs and designs. Luckily, there are grants to build it, and we will use video gaming revenue to sustain it. Video Gaming is another project that I pushed to get going in Will County, which has also passed and will be starting soon. See my blog on this.
I am looking forward to overseeing this project, but it requires that I get re-elected ion November. 🙂 If not, this area very well could be another taxpayer built, unnecessary building. 🙁
