Joliet Approves Suburban Denver Firm's Plans To Redevelop Downtown

JOLIET, IL -As widely anticipated, Joliet's City Council gave unanimous approval on Tuesday night to the city's redevelopment agreement with Innovation Pavilion. The suburban Denver investment firm has set its sights on national expansion. The company wants to put an innovation campus that caters to millennials in downtown Joliet to help transform the city's center.

The multi-million dollar project, if it pans out, would be a blockbuster for Joliet. Innovation Pavilion has previously garnered national headlines for its existing innovation campus in Centennial, Colorado and its plans to build additional campuses in Parker, Colorado and Olathe, Kansas in the fall of 2018.

Vic Ahmed, chief executive officer for Innovation Pavilion, spoke at Monday night's pre-council meeting to address any lingering questions. He received an incredibly warm reception from Joliet's politicians.

Tuesday's action by the council covers what amounts to the first phase of Innovation Pavilion's downtown redevelopment plans. Joliet has agreed to provide the Colorado investment group with city-owned land at no cost and up to $200,000 in financial incentives to defray the company's engineering and architectural design costs, which will likely surpass $500,000, city managers indicated.

However, if the Innovation Pavilion project fizzled, for whatever reason, the $200,000 in proposed city incentives and also the land would remain in the city's control. The agreement is contingent upon Innovation Pavilion filing a formal building permit with Joliet.

"The beauty is there is no risk to the city," Steve Jones, city economic development director, told the council.

In his estimation, the downtown Joliet project which would encompass either 100,000-square-feet or 200,000-square-feet of corporate offices, retail shops and millennial-oriented housing, would take three to five years to accomplish. It remains to be seen whether Ahmed will break ground for construction at some point next year, or perhaps in 2019.

The city has dangled two different land parcels for Innovation Pavilion to consider. One site is north of the Harrah's Joliet Casino & Hotel near the Des Plaines River. The second site, the one Jones said he prefers, is dubbed the Washington Street project. That is the bigger parcel and it's closer to Joliet Central High School, near the old Lyons Lumberyard.

To read more Patch stories about this major downtown project go here.

Image via Joliet Patch Editor John Ferak