"We're moving. We're making progress," Hyde says. "I've lived here 74 years, and this is the first time anything concrete has been done down there. Right now, we're going ahead."

That "will do" attitude already has attracted some developer interest, Hyde says, as the city begins to seriously follow recommendations made by an Urban Land Institute advisory services program panel. Led by former Indianapolis mayor William J. Hudnut, the panel visited this city almost equidistant from Chicago and Milwaukee last month.

"We've got a couple of bites, and they're coming in all the time," Hyde says. "They're feeling us out and making sure the city is willing to invest to turn this around."

Hyde says the city will form an independent non-profit authority to oversee development of the city's long slumbering Downtown and a lakefront that was developed long ago for railroad and industrial use. Also, an architect will be hired to draw up a plan for retail and residential development east of the railroad tracks along the lakefront.

As long-awaited and ambitious as Waukegan's redevelopment effort is, it has its share of obstacles. Chief among them is what's beneath the 1,500 acres of lakefront property. With a long history of heavy industrial uses there, the city expends to spend much of its $100 million in lakefront reclamation on environmental remediation, Hyde says. ULI suggests the city explore seeking state and federal help. "This site is simply too large, and the reclamation problems too complex and costly, to think that this – or any city – could go it alone on a project of such magnitude," according to the panel's executive summary.

Other ULI panel recommendations include the city buying the former Outboard Marine property on the lakefront, which was marketed by Jones Lang LaSalle last year. Money for land buys could come from the new sales tax as well as tax increment financing, which already is in place.

Half of the new sales tax revenue will be earmarked to lakefront redevelopment, Hyde says, 25% will go to pay off bonds for the renovation of the Genesee Theater -- the city claims Jack Benny and Jerry Orbach as native sons -- in the city's Downtown, and the remaining 25% would pay to renovate streets.

Instant Insights /

Penny Sales Tax Turns City's Redevelopment Thoughts to Action

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