Bays Will Get Downtown Joliet A Fancy Restaurant: Ferak Column

JOLIET, IL - This past week, Joliet's City Council approved a TIF agreement with John Bays Enterprises for a redevelopment that may have huge implications on Joliet's continuing efforts to revitalize the downtown. Bays is in the midst of a $4 million upgrade to the Catholic Charities Building that he bought last year at 201-203 North Ottawa Street. Bays wants to bring a big-name restaurant to the corner of Cass and Ottawa, something that will put downtown Joliet on the fine-dining destination map.

The city of Joliet expects Bays to have this redevelopment completed absolutely no later than June 30, 2021. (A TIF agreement is a way of subsidizing improvements in a specific area by having a municipality pay for the work upfront and then be reimbursed by the increased taxes generated by the improved district.)

As a seasoned journalist who grew up in Joliet, I've lived all over the Midwest the past 20 years, and I take great pride in being able to spot a snake oil salesman.

While in Omaha, I was asked to do an update story about a guy named Carl Jennings. He had a vacant piece of property out in no man's land, about 30 miles away. In Wahoo, Nebraska, Jennings had delusions of turning this parcel into a big-time amusement park, similar to a Six Flags Great America.

Back in the day, Omaha once had a nice family-friendly amusement park, called Peony Park, but it had closed and was demolished to make way for a shopping center.

Before the Omaha park's razing, Jennings collected up some Peony Park memorabilia including picnic tables and other knickknacks to preserve its memory. During our face-to-face interview at the Wigwam Cafe in downtown Wahoo, Jennings kept comparing himself to Walt Disney as he handed me some of his plastic Peony Park keychains that he made. During our interview, Jennings assured me that his plans for buying up multiple rollercoasters from all over the country were coming together accordingly.

That afternoon, I walked the hallowed grounds of the future Peony Park II with Jennings as my guide.

It was a floodplain, and I remember a large slab of concrete in the middle of this grassy field. This chunk of concrete was supposedly being used for outdoor music concerts and high school class reunion dances, a way to generate income to fund the construction of the future Peony Park II, so Jennings claimed.

Ultimately, I never wrote an update story about Carl Jennings and his grand plans to open a new Nebraska amusement park. Thankfully, my editors came to an agreement that there would be no more Carl Jennings stories in Nebraska's largest newspaper until Jennings actually got a rollercoaster.

This was back in 2003. I left the Omaha paper in December 2012. This past May, Jennings died at 61. His unrealistic plans of opening a new Nebraska amusement park never materialized.

And that brings us back to Joliet's John Bays.

Bays, in my opinion, is the exact opposite of Carl Jennings. For starters, Bays has been involved in real estate investments around Joliet for decades. He has deep ties to the Joliet community. He has a strong desire to see downtown Joliet succeed.

If you grew up around Joliet, like I did, you know who John Bays is.

Last week, before the TIF agreement vote, City Council member Jan Quillman spoke up.

"Mr. Bays, how are we doing with the restaurant?"

"I have like eight people that are willing to put in a restaurant right now," Bays answered Quillman, "but it's not the names I'm looking for. I'm still working on it."

Additionally, Bays said that he had a meeting with a prospective restaurant tenant scheduled for later that same night. He had a meeting set up for Wednesday, November 8 with another restaurant.

For now, Catholic Charities uses the second floor of the three-story building for office space.

"Normally, I would have the building full by now," Bays told the council. "I have enough tenants to fill the building up right now. But I'm trying to do something kind of special with this building. I really want what I want for this building so I'm stalling a little bit to try to land the right person."

In recent months, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk's administration has been chipping away at a number of projects focused on downtown. The city just renamed Silver Cross Field as Joliet Route 66 Stadium; the minor league ballpark is currently undergoing a $2 million-plus renovation to install field turf. Starting next year, the city intends to use the sports facility as a multi-purpose, year-round venue.

Joliet's next huge project entails reconfiguring Chicago Street. The current route takes motorists away from downtown Joliet, to the detriment of local businesses and potential investors. It's been that way for years.

"We need traffic downtown," Bays urged the council. "I think when you open Chicago Street, that's going to bring a lot of traffic, especially if we can get that two-way traffic going there."

Over the coming months, we'll have a better understanding of whether Joliet made the right call in approving a TIF agreement for Bays and his Catholic Charities building at Cass and Ottawa.

His Bays Investment Corporation web site touts several other noteworthy downtown properties:

• The State of Illinois Building

• Bays Professional Centre

• Executive Centre

• Pioneer Building

"I have a lot of plans for other things that I'm going to do downtown," Bays told the council, "but the Catholic Charities Building ... I'm going to talk to Catholic Charities about maybe downsizing ... because I've got a plan for a really big tenant that would like to have that whole second floor of Catholic Charities. This is a million-dollar company ... they're coming to downtown Joliet for sure. I've got a guarantee ... the Catholic Charities Building is the only (one) that's really big enough for them."

Since October, there's been a lot of buzz around the downtown about John Bays and what he's got in store. Some people I've talked to have said that Bays won't settle for anything less than an Olive Garden or a Ditka's restaurant. Maybe that's true, or maybe Bays has his eyes on something else. Time will tell.

In any event, given John Bays' business track record across Joliet, with the Crowne Plaza Chicago-Northbrook and in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Tundra Lodge Resort and Conference Center, you won't see me placing any bets at the Joliet Harrah's Casino against John Bays.

If John Bays proclaims at a public Joliet City Council meeting that he intends to bring a first-rate dining establishment that will be a shot in the arm for downtown's entertainment district, why would you expect him to fail?

Main image via City of Joliet, secondary images via Joliet Patch Editor John Ferak