La Salle council agrees to economic incentive for brewpub, in exchange for timeline with a March 2024 completion

The brewpub project at 801 First St. in downtown La Salle is tentatively scheduled for completion in March 2024.

City officials approved an agreement with building owners CL Enterprises at Monday’s City Council meeting to help execute the project’s completion. The agreement offers CL a tax increment financing incentive in exchange for CL presenting a timeline in which they commit to completing the project.

In a joint press release between CL and La Salle, CL said the city’s assistance and offering of economic development tools, such as the TIF agreement is what will make the project possible.

“We’re grateful for the city of La Salle’s support and are confident our positive working relationship will accelerate completion of this transformative project,” CL President Nathan Watson said in the press release. “It’s wonderful to see cooperation between our firm and all the relevant city departments, the aldermen and Mayor (Jeff) Grove.”

The brewpub project is a $3 million redevelopment by CL Enterprises to turn the former Maytag building in downtown La Salle into the Rocket Brewpub. The building will be renovated into a Tangled Roots brewery and restaurant along with six residential apartments on the second floor.

The completion timeline, created by CL, details the length of each stage of the renovation beginning with updating the plans on Monday, Jan 23, and finishing restaurant construction on March 8, 2024. The schedule is preliminary and may change once CL gets a contractor for the project. The city’s deadline for CL is to have the project completed within 16 months from now.

“Once we’re all on the same page, and CL has a contractor, then as a city we’ll be expecting them to basically hit those milestones and get the completion done,” Grove said. “We’ve had meetings with them and we’re very confident that could happen.”

The TIF agreement La Salle made with CL is available to any developer in La Salle and is standard practice for encouraging economic development in the city, said Finance Director John Duncan. Duncan said he’s thrilled about the agreement and the plan for the brewpub’s completion.

A TIF does not reach into municipal funds or increase taxes. A TIF is the difference in tax revenue from before a development project to after, when the property has increased in real estate value and thus generates more tax revenue.

In the agreement with CL, the city will reimburse CL for 50% of the incremental increase in real estate tax generated due at the project’s completion. The reimbursements will help cover project costs each year until 2031, when the reimbursements expire and the TIF will be eligible for a possible extension.

Failure to complete the project within the next 16 months will terminate the agreement and deem CL in default. There are allowances in the agreement if the failure to complete the project is because of factors beyond CL’s control. For example: strikes, labor trouble, civil disorder, inability to procure materials, weather conditions, restrictive laws, riots, war, casualties, fuel shortages, pandemics or any other applicable cause, according to the agreement.

Grove said he’s hoping those uncontrollable issues listed in the agreement will take care of themselves, and said the city will be understanding with CL as they navigate the project.

“Everyone thinks there’s contentiousness between the city and CL, and there’s not,” Grove said. “I think we’re all on the same page, we want to do what’s right for downtown, and they do too. They don’t want to have an empty building there, and I think we’re all on the right page moving forward.”

A similar redevelopment agreement is being negotiated between CL and the city for the $25 million Kaskaskia Hotel renovation project. Grove said an agreement is expected to be reached within the next few months.