Fairbury City Council Votes For $1.2 Million City Hall

By Theodore BallThe Fairbury City Council voted unanimously to construct a $1.2 million city hall on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. In addition to being the city hall, the building would act as a business incubator which aims to strengthen struggling or start-up businesses. The building is expected to be finished by 2026. According to a memo presented at the meeting, in March of 2023, the City of Fairbury was awarded $750,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund to construct a small business incubator and create a program that will provide grant funding to small businesses located within the cities Qualified Census Tract (QCT). The city will be using $605,000 of this award to construct the new structure. The remaining estimated balance of $300,000 is to come from the city’s general fund to cover miscellaneous and office expenses. The total estimated cost for this project is $1,229,699. The rest of the QTC award funds will be applied to the proposed Elevate Fairbury program that will help small for-profit businesses with start-up or expansion expenses.Fairbury City Staff have been working with a planning firm, Ayars & Ayars, for several months and presented three projects to the city council. The projects included the accepted proposal and the rehab of two buildings at 619 D Street and 520 E Street. All three of the project’s projected costs were over $1 million. Planning and Zoning Department Development Services Director Laura Bedlan has been integral in the process of approving the project, but there is still more work to do.Bedlan said, “The initial ARPA application was approved by council, submitted and funded in March of 23. Once funded, we procured for a design/build firm and have been working with the selected firm on preliminary design for each of the sites that were submitted for in the application. Those designs were reviewed by several committees and finally council for the final site selection. Now that a site has been selected. We will do a detailed review of the design and bring that along with the contract documents for construction back to council for final approval.”

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