The Voice contributor, Marissa Amoni, and other community members, wrote several questions for Aurora mayoral candidates in the consolidated primary election to answer.
Below are answers from current mayor, Richard Irvin.
How will you work to restore our riverfront along the Fox River, especially north of downtown and RiverEdge Park?
Since 2017 my administration has been planning for the restoration and redevelopment of our beautiful riverfront. The city has the longest riverfront of any city in Illinois. We have identified ownership of every property along the river and have a game plan aligned to the City’s Comprehensive Plan which calls for a mix of high and low rise residential and commercial development and open green space. We are currently working to evaluate the remediation of contaminated riverfront properties along the river and have taken legal action to clean up two significant properties so that they may be appropriately redeveloped. We are also working with the owners to relocate their current factory they are operating on the river so that the site can be cleaned up and redeveloped. We require every development along the river such as the current DAC residential apartment building to completely clean up the property prior to construction. We will continue these efforts as long as I’m Mayor of the City of Aurora.
How will you work with small businesses to ensure their success despite economic trends?
I believe my role as mayor is to ensure the success of all businesses in the city with a specific focus on small businesses since they are the backbone of our economy. For example, during Covid I made sure we granted over $2 million to small businesses to ensure they not only survived the pandemic but set them up to thrive post-pandemic. To date we have had almost 300 ribbon cuttings all over Aurora, including welcoming many new small businesses into the City of Aurora. We have worked with Invest Aurora to create grant and loan programs to retain successful small businesses and continue to attract new ones.
Will you consider rezoning downtown Aurora to first floor retail, entertainment, and dining to encourage more foot traffic and visitors?
First floor retail, entertainment and dining are already allowed in the downtown and after decades of empty storefronts and unused vacant buildings, we have seen positive redevelopment throughout the downtown with much more planned in the future. Much of this growth has come from residential demand for apartments which has been met by redevelopments such as Keystone, Terminal and Hobbs building. New entertainment venues such as the Venue, Copley and Stolp Island Theatre complimenting the Paramount have brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to downtown. I would absolutely be open to responsibly considering rezoning downtown Aurora to ensure first floor residential which is currently not allowed and work with our zoning and planning professionals for potential recommendations.
In downtown Aurora, there are a few stretches of prime storefronts that continue to remain vacant (e.g. 44 W. Downer Pl. and 65 E. Downer Pl.). What is your plan to activate those properties?
My plan is to continue to identify vacant storefront properties such as the ones mentioned above and market them to qualified developers who are willing to develop them to their highest and best uses with emphasis on retail/commercial first floor uses and residential second floor uses. We have put certain city owned downtown properties out for request for proposals and have been able to find developers for them. We’ve seen Aurora’s downtown turn from an empty city center to a thriving and bustling urban center with people all around. We have plans to continue our efforts to bring more downtown businesses and development along with more residents and the retail necessary to cater to those people that now live in our downtown. In the last year alone we’ve added four new restaurants downtown and over the last four years added another 200 residents who live in our downtown and we have plans for over 1000 more in 2025 and 2026.
How will you deal with commercial property owners who continue to not maintain their property?
As we have done since 2017, we will continue to utilize our property standards, planning and zoning and code enforcement professionals to enforce the appropriate ordinances and building and zoning codes to ensure the property owners are properly maintaining their commercial properties as required. We have attempted to first seek compliance through our enforcement process but when that is not achieved we have utilized both administrative adjudication and circuit court for compliance. We have also found developers willing to purchase dilapidated or noncompliant properties who have successfully brought them into compliance. My plan is to continue this successful formula as long as I am mayor.
This fall, City Council approved giving three million dollars to Elevate Aurora, a new organization that includes Invest Aurora, Aurora Downtown, and Aurora Regional Chamber of Commerce. What are your thoughts on the merger?
I believe all those individual organizations had their strengths as well as weaknesses that we’ve identified over a number of years. The merger of all these organizations into the Aurora Regional Economic Alliance brings all their collective talents, assets, and visions together under one umbrella, and makes the new organization even stronger by sharing best practices, ideas and financial, marketing and development resources. By no longer duplicating services the Alliance will be able to offer so much more as one unified and impactful economic development group that we need long term.
With the director of Aurora Public Art being dismissed recently, what is your plan for the future of Aurora Public Art?
The future of Aurora Public Art is brighter than ever. During my administration, we have put more public murals throughout our downtown than any other administration in recent history. We installed beautiful new art installations at Skinny Park and in the sculpture park next to the Pierce Arts Center and utilized widely renowned artists and sculptors. We’ve also had many more public art focused events in our downtown than in recent history including Lumenaura which created a month long celebration of light, art, music, interactive, interpretive, visual and other forms of public art which attracted thousands of visitors and families downtown and to our bars, restaurants and businesses. My administration will always prioritize Public Art and make sure we continue to build on our successes in the future with highly qualified and creative Public Art leadership and passionate and talented volunteers.
What is your plan for the old post office which most recently served as SciTech Museum?
We continue to seek the highest and best uses for the former SciTech building that will be fiscally responsible, sustainable long term and contribute significantly to our downtown. We are working closely with our Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, the new Aurora Regional Economic Alliance and community partners to evaluate some exciting new concepts that we hope to announce soon.
Do you have any long term plans regarding the homeless population living in encampments around the outskirts of downtown?
This administration has created a strong plan to assist our homeless population by working directly with Hesed House and AID and other partners to create an ongoing Homelessness Task Force. The task force has greatly improved communication and collaboration and has led to the city adopting a Built for Zero homelessness reduction initiative based on data driven collaborations and resources with community partners. This model has worked in other cities around the country and everyone is working hard to ensure it succeeds in Aurora. Working directly with Hesed House since I’ve been mayor, we have either directly given or worked with Hesed House to apply for grants totaling over $3 million which allowed them to complete their new permanent supportive housing and expanded their footprint, services and housing capacity, allowing more individuals to move out of encampments and into Hesed House. We also continue to work on additional resources for transitional housing, workforce development, and affordable housing options working with our task force partners.
What industry or businesses would you most like to see established in Aurora?
I would like to see businesses or industries continue to locate in Aurora which provide a variety of desirable job opportunities with competitive wages and benefits. We have many successful businesses and industries who do that in the city of Aurora but I believe the future of businesses in Aurora will have an IT focus to capitalize on our well over 160 miles of fiber optic network, and our outstanding well prepared workforce thanks to our local educational partners and technical training centers. Since I’ve been mayor, we’ve added millions of square feet of new data centers and IT-related companies here in the city of Aurora.
Do you believe transparency in government is important, and would you support increased reporting requirements for private organizations receiving significant city funding?
Transparency is paramount to a fully functional open government. As a matter of fact, this administration has been more transparent than any other administration in the history of our city. We were the first ones to broadcast City Council meetings on television. We created a number of open data portals and dashboards and soon an entirely new and improved city website to provide our residents quick and easy access to city data and information. We created a number of new boards and commissions to better represent our community and constantly give our residents a voice and the ability to know what’s going on inside their local government as well as give them a platform to provide input on new ideas and how we are doing our jobs. As for increased reporting requirements for anyone receiving city funding, all such city funding already goes through an extensive open and transparent process with built in checks and balances from the city council legislative process which includes public committee meetings, committee of the whole and city council public discussion and approval. There are also written agreements which are submitted for council approval that detail the requirements that must be met for any public funding to be provided to anyone by the city.
The city has continued to acquire real estate, particularly downtown. What is your stance on this practice?
Actually, the city is looking to divest ourselves of certain properties that we own throughout the city and not just downtown so we can build more housing including affordable housing and put these properties back on the tax rolls. The city will sometimes purchase property to ensure that we control our destiny or to facilitate economic development. For example, we purchased the old motel properties on Farnsworth across from the outlet mall which is where the new casino/hotel resort is under construction. We also purchased the properties east of the outlet mall on Bilter in part to prevent truck depots or warehouses from going there and instead looking to develop residential and other entertainment uses to complement the mall and bring much-needed revenue to the city and our residents.
What is your position on dam removal?
I believe the dams should only be removed once we have received definitive data and evidence to assure us that appropriate water table and river depth levels will be maintained throughout our riverfront. We have requested this information and cooperated with the Army Corps but to date we have not received definitive data from the Army Corps of Engineers about how removal of the dams will actually affect river levels and how river flow will be maintained to ensure that Aurora‘s portion of the Fox River does not become a marshy swamp. Also important to note that the Fox River is one of our sources of potable water for our city water production. I have also requested data about any impact and effect the removal of dams upstream from Aurora may have on our water plant as well. Once we can make that determination of how to regulate the river levels, additional public hearings are held for full transparency and public participation and everyone agrees on a full plan and timeline, I would be fully on board with supporting removing the Fox River dams in Aurora.