Copyright Shaw Local Enewspapers
Bourbonnais officials are seeing whether developers have any interest in two parcels of land the village owns near the BrickStone Brewery production facility. According to the plan, there are 5.5 acres to the west and south of the facility. There is a 1.2-acre parcel to the south of the brewery, which is located on Brewery Lane off Brown Boulevard. “We’ve been talking about doing this for some time,” Administrator Mike Van Mill said. The parcels sit in a tax increment financing district as well as the village’s business district. A TIF district is a designated area in which a municipality uses the future growth of property tax revenue from the area to finance public improvements such as streets and utilities. “We want to go out and see if there’s anybody that has any good ideas for the land,” Van Mill said. “So, we’ve thought about it for some time. There’s been some opportunities to put this out before, but the timing wasn’t right. But we think the timing is good right now to see if there’s any interest.” The village put out a request for proposals for a development on Brewery Lane. The deadline to submit a proposal is Nov. 24. The RFP is needed before a municipality can engage any developer to sell the lane, Van Mill said. “We need to spark something at the brewery at some point,” he said. “We’re hoping maybe the combination of us putting this out there and the brewery, obviously for sale, would spark some interest.”
