NORMAL – The new five-story building that is planned to be constructed in Uptown Normal has the chance to greatly improve the local economy.
Zach Dietmeier, the Vice President of Communications for the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council, says that this is exactly the sort of investment that the Town of Normal should be making.
“This is the epitome of a good economic development project. In the city core, private investment with a public partnership. It’s exactly what you’re looking for.”
The main tenant for the building is going to be Farnsworth, an architecture and engineering company currently located in the Heartland Bank Building in Uptown. Naturally, they are also the architecture firm designing the structure.
“They were the driving force behind it, and they’ve participated in a few of the Uptown developments. This is kind of the conclusion of the circle development, the last one being One Uptown across the way,” said Dietmeier.
The building that currently contains the restaurant Windy City Wieners will have to be demolished in order to make room for the development. However, this likely does not mean the end for the Uptown restaurant, as they have been working together to give them a new home on the first floor of the building.
“Windy City Wieners will hopefully be relocating in that new space. They don’t want to chase off business by doing a new development. That should never be the plan.”
Along with that potential tenant, a large portion of the building is already set to be occupied before they have even broken ground.
“What I’ve been told by a town official and by the Farnsworth folks working on the building is that roughly 80% of the building is already accounted for. They said they’ll have commercial tenants and a food hall on the first floor too,” Dietmeier explained.
In addition, it is expected that there will be three floors of office space (one of which entirely occupied by Farnsworth), and eight residential units on the top floor.
Zach Wilson contributed to this story.
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