Out to Lunch at Jalapenos Restaurant

Join us for the monthly Out to Lunch event

Date: Monday, January 30th
Time: 12 pm
Where: Jalapenos Restaurant
7 Clock Tower Plaza
Elgin, IL

Dan Fox and Don Waters of the Elgin Leadership Academy will be our guests. Dan and Don have run the Academy with the backing of the Elgin Area Chamber for the last 15 years. The academy has nurtured hundreds of future leaders including a state representative, county board member, city council members, school board, social service and community organization board members and business leaders. Many DNA volunteers and staff members have attended over the years and Armida Dominguez, Jennifer Benson and Heidi Lipinski are in the academy this year. I am a proud alum of the class of 1999, "Leading Elgin Into the New Millennium". Please post a comment if you are an academy alumni and share the impact the experience has had on you.

So join us on the 30th to meet two individuals that have contributed in many ways to the volunteer spirit that defines this place we call Elgin.

The menu is an all you can eat Buffet Lunch. Please RSVP at (847)488-1456.

Event Expected to Bring Philatelists to Elgin

The U.S. Postal Service is unveiling the newest 2006 first-class 39 cent stamps, Favorite Children's Book Animals, on Friday, January 27, 2006. The event will take place at the Gail Borden Library at 270 N. Grove Avenue, from 11 to 3. Wild Thing and Curious George characters will be present and there will be many, many fun activities throughout the library. Honored guests at the 11 a.m. ceremony will include Elgin Postmaster, Diane Tindle, and Connie Neale, superintendent of U-46 schools. A unique one-day-only Gail Borden Public Library cancellation will make its 4-hour cameo appearance from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. at the library. More information.

This is the second time in the last six months that a stamp was unveiled in downtown Elgin. The "Let's Dance" series was unveiled on September 17, 2005 at Fiesta Salsa.

Downtown Businesses in the News

Kim's Black Belt Academy at 5 S. Spring St was featured in an article on the Larsen Middle School Fine Arts/Life Arts Career Day.

For the second year in a row, Butters, a drama teacher at the school, helped coordinate Fine Arts/Life Arts Career Day, an opportunity for pupils to explore various careers or hobbies and absorb some of the passion for those activities from the people who love doing them.
Margaret and Jeff Kim, for example, got educated in computer science and law, respectively. But the couple have turned their love of martial arts into a running business. The duo runs Kim's Black Belt Academy in downtown Elgin. And on Friday morning, they were speaking with seventh- and eighth-graders about martial arts and their love for it.

It was written by Liza Roche and appeared in the Saturday Courier News.

Andersen's Engraving at 64 N. Grove Ave was featured in an article by Lenore Adkins in the Sunday Daily Herald.

Sverre Jarl Andersen, founder of what was known as Andersen’s Gifts of Distinction in downtown Elgin, believed in doing things his way when he opened the store in 1961.
“He would take the business and always want to improve it somehow,” said his son Dave Andersen. “He never wanted to follow the template, he wanted to be the guy that writes the template.”

Metra Schedule Changes Starting January 30th

This from the Chicago Tribune.

No trains have been eliminated or added but commuters may find arrival times adjusted by a few minutes at stations between Big Timber Road in Elgin and Union Station.

All new schedules can be viewed at Metra's Web site, www.metrarail.com, starting today, the release said. Commuters can pick up paper copies of the new schedules later in the month at Ogilvie and at Union Station.For Union Pacific/West riders, Metra personnel will pass out schedules at Ogilvie during the evening rush hour on Jan. 12. Those schedules will be available downtown and at all outlying stations after that day.For SouthWest Service and North Central Service commuters, Metra personnel will begin passing out schedules at Union Station on Jan. 19. In the following days, those schedules will be available downtown and at outlying stations, along with revised Milwaukee District West schedules, the release said.

Read the article here.

Coffee Shop to Reopen

The coffee shop, formerly known as "The Daily Bean", will reopen on Monday, January 9th. The new name is "Let's Meet for Coffee". The shop is located at 109 E. Highland.

Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space: Holiday storefront photo from Elgin Illinois

Elgin's downtown efforts are being noticed. See the post from Richard Layman's Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space blog regarding getting students involved in the effort. Click here for a map of all the windows decorated for Window Wonderland 2005. A hat tip to Richard for the communitywalk.com site that hosts our maps. I first saw the Google Map tool on one of his posts and applied it to our site.

Downtown demolition on city agenda

This from today's Courier News.

The city council is set to vote Wednesday on tearing down a quartet of vacant buildings, a move that could pave the way for more downtown redevelopment.

Also on the council's agenda is spending $20,000 to tear down the city-owned former Goodyear building directly north of the Elgin Law Enforcement Facility. The building occupies one corner of a downtown block that is largely taken up by the Grater Inc. cheese factory but which the city would like to see redeveloped.
Officials probably are not interested in seeing the Goodyear site redeveloped on its own, being more interested in a large-scale project that would include the majority of the block bound by Spring and Kimball streets, Douglas Avenue and Symphony Way, according to Deering.
"I think we would like to see a bigger plan, a bigger approach, maybe the whole block," he said.

The locations are as follows:
64 S. State St./Illinois 31
The Goodyear building directly north of the Elgin Law Enforcement Facility.
The former Amy Plumbing buildings at 58 Kimball St. and 271 N. Grove Ave .

The old Grant Park Elementary School at 265 N. Jackson St in the near west area is also scheduled for demolition.

Read the full story by Nathaniel Zimmer here.

Condos, kids' center added to ESO concert hall plan

These details on the proposed Symphony Center were reported in the Courier News today.

The Elgin Symphony Orchestra has added 200 condominiums and a children's "discovery center" to its proposal to build a 1,800-seat concert hall downtown, directly east of the new Gail Borden Public Library.

The hall would be located on the southern half of roughly 9.5 acres bound by North Grove Avenue and Ann, Kimball and Brook streets. The children's center and a four-level parking deck topped by a condominium tower would stand to the north.

Read the full article by Nathaniel Zimmer here.
Map of location.

Great American Family Diner Ribbon Cutting

The ribbon cutting took place on Thursday, December 15th.

"A Reel Holiday" Window Wonderland 2005

The Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin Holiday decorating contest. Ends 1/1/2006. The theme is "A Reel Holiday" your favorite holiday movies. Click here for a map of the windows and a ballot.

Versatile Prius Used for Ribbon Cutting

The opening of the Fulton Street Parking Deck was held on December 14, 2005. Mayor Schock and Councilman Gilliam drove the new Prius city vehicle through the ribbon. This may be the first time a hybrid has been used for a ribbon cutting ceremony. The new deck has parking for 550 cars and is located between South Grove and Villa Street, with entrances from both Fulton Street and Prairie Street. It is located just behind the Prairie Rock Brewing Company and was designed to blend in with the existing buildings.







The buildings in the background are Phase 2 of the River Park Place Townhomes.

The Great American Family Diner is Open

The Great American Family Diner at 231 Douglas is open!
The ribbon cutting is on Thursday, December 15th at 5pm.
I stopped by for lunch today. Here's the highlights.

• Diner menu
• Plenty of hot coffee
• My server Kathy called me sweetie
• Friendly staff and owners
• Saw Councilman Tom Sandor and Jack Sabo of Studio One chowing down

They are open for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner so stop by and tell them DNA sent you.

This Saturday the entertainment is a singer performing Frank Sinatra Christmas songs from 7 to 9 pm. Have dinner and enjoy the music.

Santaland Diaries

Come to the Hemmens and see “Santaland”
Janus Theatre gets three stars from the Daily Herald

This is the last year you can see it, and we’re going out with a bang! Playing at the Hemmens Theatre with The Mark Bettcher Sextet opening the show, “The Santaland Diaries” is the true story of David Sedaris’ wild adventures as a Macy Christmas elf.

Barbara Vitello, theater critic for the Daily Herald, raves: “Gleefully subversive. This show will put a smile on your face.” ***stars out of four!!!

Come see the play that put David Sedaris on the map. This will be the only suburban performance of this irreverent holiday gem. (This show is for 16yrs and older. Not for children.)

To get your tickets to the Janus Theatre Company’s “The Santaland Diaries” with The Mark Bettcher Sextet:

Sunday, December 18 at 6p.m.
CALL: 847-931-5900
Get a discount by mentioning “Santa Baby” when you order your tickets
Get a $5 discount on Main Floor tickets. They were $20 now they’re $15!!!
Get a $10 discount on Golden Circle tickets. They were $40 now they’re $30!
(Golden Circle is cabaret seating and includes one free drink ticket. A great deal!)

SO HURRY NOW WHILE THIS OFFER LASTS AND ROOM IS AVAILABLE!!!

Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space: Restaurants as drivers of commercial district revitalization

I was at a party on Saturday and was asked, "When are we going to get more restaurants downtown", so I thought this article was timely.

"It was really the restaurants, they were the traffic pull, which in turn led to specialty shop development," Matson said.
From the article "Seminary Street provides the model: Built on restaurants, pubs, specialty stores," about the Main Street commercial district in Galesburg, Illinois. Galesburg was one of the three initial pilot communities where the Main Street model was developed and tested in the late 1970s.

Link to the full article
Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space: Restaurants as drivers of commercial district revitalization

Link to a map with restaurants in downtown Elgin.

Fire Destroys Elgin Lumber Company in Elgin, Texas

Is there a parallel universe?

From KXAN-TV, TX Dec 7, 2005, 10:19 PM CST

The same wind that helped usher in this Arctic cold front also helped fan the flames of a fire in Central Texas. The difficult weather conditions kept firefighters in Elgin busy for hours. The fire broke out shortly before 2 p.m. and quickly engulfed the old wooden structure that used to house the Elgin Lumber Company.

Read the article here.

Or this article with a photo from the Elgin Courier (Elgin, Texas)

This is too strange. I thought the fact that both Elgin, IL and Elgin, TX are Main Street communities and both have newspapers with Courier in their name. Now large fires within days of each other at vacant lumber yards.

New Features on Downtown Elgin Blog

Several new features and changes have occurred during the past week.

• RSS subscription buttons moved to the top of the side panel
• In The News section added for links to newspaper articles
• Calendar section added with downtown events from upcoming.org and links to the City of Elgin and Elgin Area Chamber calendars
• Photos from Flickr section shows the three most recent pictures
• A Google map from Communitywalk.com with downtown points of interest. A limited number of locations have been entered, more to come.
• A Google map from ATMLocator with ATM locations in the downtown

The Flickr photos and Google maps appear at the very bottom of the page if you are using Internet Explorer (IE) but work correctly in Firefox. We're working on this issue.

Elgin Junior Woman’s Club plans ornament exchange

The Elgin Junior Woman’s Club will hold its general meeting Tuesday, December 6th at the Downtown Neighborhood Association, 2 Douglas Ave, Elgin.
Social time at 7 p.m. , meeting at 7:30 p.m.
Bring a wrapped Christmas ornament if you would like to participate in an ornament exchange.

Daily Herald article.

Public Hearing for the Adoption of the 2006 City of Elgin Budget

The 2006 Budget is currently under review by City Council. The Public Hearing for the Adoption of the 2006 Budget is scheduled for Wednesday, December 21, 2005 at the Regular City Council Meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m. Public comments will be heard at the December 7, 2005 Truth and Taxation Public Hearing scheduled for 7:00 p.m. as well. Due to the size of the Budget, it has been saved as seven separate sections.

Proposed 2006 Budget – Entire Document (10,282 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 1 (1,341 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 2 (2,244 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 3 (2,376 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 4 (5,630 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 5 (1,076 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 6 (1,823 KB)
Proposed 2006 Budget – Section 7 (2,317 KB)
If you have questions or would like to contribute your budget comments email: budget@cityofelgin.org, or call 847-931-5930.

Traffic Enforcement Forum

As part of a continuing series of community forums, the Elgin Human Relations Commission will sponsor a traffic enforcement forum Thursday, Dec. 6, 2005 at 7:00 p.m. in the West Conference Room, at The Centre, 100 Symphony Way, Elgin.

“Traffic enforcement and police interaction with citizens during traffic stops is often looked upon as confrontational and negative,” said Dorothy Brandon, the City’s EEO specialist. “This forum is designed to educate people on Elgin traffic enforcement practices.”

Elgin police Chief Lisa Womack will provide an overview of traffic law enforcement within the City of Elgin while also providing a data report. Participants will be able to ask questions.

Nominations for the 2005 Elgin Image Awards

The Image Advisory Commission is currently accepting nominations for the 2005 Elgin Image Awards. Nomination forms are currently available at City Hall, The Gail Borden Library, and The Centre of Elgin. The deadline for submittal is Friday January 6, 2006.

The annual competition honoring beautification and image-enhancement efforts by local individuals, businesses, and organizations has always attracted a lot of interest from across the community. Past winners in the thirteen year old competition have included organizations such as the Elgin Symphony Orchestra and Talisman Theatre, special events such as the Gifford Park Association’s annual Housewalk, the Chamber’s Enhancing Elgin campaign, many outstanding individual volunteer efforts and numerous civic organizations and local businesses. The principal criterion for the Image Awards is simple – nominees have had to make a substantial positive impact on the improvement of Elgin’s image. There are five categories for the annual awards including Individual/professional, Individual/volunteer, Projects (such as special events, fundraising projects and neighborhood improvements), and Organizations or Businesses. In addition to the Image Awards, the Commission also presents a Citizenship award. This award is designed to recognize individuals whose outstanding activities and efforts exemplify the meaning of citizenship.

Winners are selected by members of the Image Advisory Commission, and will be honored at the annual Image Awards event scheduled for March 9th, 2006 at The Centre of Elgin. For more information or questions regarding the Image Awards please contact Meredith Hannah, Marketing Officer at 847-931-5593.