Marseilles annexes more than 70 acres near Interstate 80

Marseilles officially – and finally – grew by more than 70 acres on Wednesday night.

The Marseilles City Council at its regular meeting annexed four properties into the city limits and officially completed its stretch to Interstate 80.

After several years of negotiations, resolutions confirming the tracts of land known as the Immanuel Lutheran Church of Marseilles and Pleasant View Lutheran Home, the Perona Real Estate LLC and the Jilani Trust were adopted, making them part of the city.

“Finally. I feel good about this. That was our goal maybe 30 years ago, to get our city limits out to the interstate.”

—  Marseilles Mayor Jim Hollenbeck

Mayor Jim Hollenbeck said it was a matter of getting all the parties and their attorneys together to get the deals done, saying there was “no urgency on anybody’s part but mine.”

“Finally,” the mayor said. “I feel good about this. That was our goal maybe 30 years ago, to get our city limits out to the interstate. We have our sewer and water all the way out there already, so now we’re concentrating on getting some new development out there.”

Hollenbeck said he’s reached out to several potential developers and he’s obtained traffic counts (cars per day) from the Illinois Department of Transportation to share with them. He added the Planning Commission will be meeting to discuss how the land will be zoned and eventually the city may hire a community planner to help lay out the areas.

There also are several residential lots still available in the Walbridge Creek subdivision, he said.

“I think once we get the first person up there, it will take off,” Hollenbeck said. “I hate to even guess how many businesses could go up there. If we had some big warehouse come in, it might take up several hundred acres, or someone might come in and do a 20-acre subdivision. Near the intersection [with I-80] I could see a gas station or a hotel, but how many, it’s hard to say.”

Hollenbeck said he hopes by the 2030 census new developments will net Marseilles 100 new homes and lift its population back more than 5,000, which would help the community financially with motor fuel taxes, funds for school lunch programs, among other items.

The council also approved its budget for fiscal 2023-24 with no changes or amendments from the document available for public view the past two weeks.

Commissioner Bobby Kaminski said the police force is the most expensive because it has officers on duty around the clock every day of the week, with the water department and waste treatment being second.

“I feel this is a very strong budget, provided we don’t have any big expenses pop up, as some cities do,” Kaminsky said. “I think it’s fiscally safe going forward. We have police officers retiring and we’ve hired new cops, we have a new street superintendent, so it’s great to have a budget you can work with. It’s just the outliers that can get you.”

In other action, the council:

Approved entering an agreement with Performance Pipelining for examining the sanitary sewers on Illinois Street with cameras and cleaning at a cost of $25,455.

Heard remarks from Dee Crenshaw, thanking the city for its work to maintain the Illinois and Michigan Canal in advance of the canal’s 175th anniversary.