Justin Fern did not mince words.
The founding partner and CEO of Urban Equity Partners LLC said his company fought through the pandemic, supply chain issues and historic renovation issues to get The Terminal Building at Galena Boulevard and Broadway in downtown Aurora open.
“This was a very hard project,” he said. “But today, I am super proud of our team, and the city.”
Fern spoke during the city’s ribbon-cutting for The Terminal, a 117-year-old building that his company redeveloped into 20 apartments and a first-floor retail space. And he pointed out that despite the issues, the company leased all 20 apartments at the cornerstone intersection in downtown Aurora within 60 days of marketing them.
“That shows you the momentum here,” he said.
Indeed, The Terminal Building is the middle event this week of three events highlighting the opening of residential properties in the city. Wednesday, the city cut a ribbon in front of a new apartment complex at Fox Valley Mall on the far East Side, and on Friday, the city will cut the ribbon in front of the Hobbs Building, another historic renovation downtown featuring apartments and retail-restaurant spaces.
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The mix of new and historic residences is almost unmatched by any other suburban city in Illinois, pointing to the unique nature of Aurora as a city with historic and architecturally important buildings, but also with new development.
“We don’t want to be Naperville, we don’t want to be Chicago,” said Ald. Juan Garza, 2nd Ward, whose ward includes The Terminal Building. “We want to be Aurora.”
Mayor Richard Irvin pointed out that it has been 70 years since some of The Terminal Building’s upper floors have been open, or “70 years since we’ve seen lights on in the upper floors of this building.”
“The light is shining brighter here in Aurora,” he said.
The Terminal was built in 1905 as the Hotel Arthur. It later became an office building, and held main offices for several interurban electric railroads, including the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin.
It was the terminal for the C,A&E at one point, which is what gives the building the name for which it’s known. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The last thing open in the building was The Broadway Diner, on the first floor, and that closed in 2003. It has been vacant since then, and at one point the building was deteriorating and accumulating citations from the city for its condition.
That eventually led to the city taking ownership of the building, which it took in trade for forgiving all the violations.
The city sold the building to Urban Equity for $1, and the company and the city signed a redevelopment agreement that included the company redeveloping the site, and the city helping with some incentives.
The project ended up being $14.6 million, most of which was paid for by Urban Equity. The city included several short-term loans, and forgave some interest in those, a $600,000 grant, and a $75,000 finish line grant. The city also created a tax increment financing district on the property that will create an increment to pay for some of the development-related costs.
Part of the reason the development was able to go at all – and the same holds for the renovation of The Keystone Building that Urban Equity also did and other downtown renovations – was the state and federal historic tax credits the company was able to sell to raise private funding.
Sale of the credits was aided by the fact that downtown Aurora – as well as parts of town surrounding downtown – are in a River Edge Redevelopment Zone, a program created by the Illinois General Assembly and embraced by the city.
At Wednesday’s event, Irvin gave a shout to the state for extending the program, and to state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, who attended the event and was a supporter of the program.
Aurora officials Wednesday pointed out that this is a time when many of the development projects that have been talked about are finally opening.
But Fern said there could be more coming, possibly even from his company.
“We hope to do some future stuff in Aurora,” he said. “This is a special city and this is a special building in it.”