Dixon Gateway Project moving forward with infrastructure, business development

DIXON – The city will soon be starting $5.2 million in infrastructure work for the Gateway Project with commercial developments starting around the same time.

The Gateway Project is expected to bring gas stations, restaurants and at least one hotel to the Interstate 88 corridor.

The 27-acre site along South Galena Avenue across from Walmart between Keul and Bloody Gulch roads broke ground a year ago with the plan to construct a dozen buildings.

We’re going to start seeing a lot happening in the spring. We’re going to be breaking ground on all the public infrastructure – water, watstewater, curb, gutter, lighting, roads, everything to do with pubic infrastructure – and while that’s going on at the same time, we’re going to have a restaurant, a hotel, a multi-tenant building, another 15,000-square-foot building and another project going on at the same time.”

—  Dixon Manager Danny Langloss

The project is expected to create more than 600 jobs and $1 million a year in new tax revenue.

In 2020, the city won a $1 million grant from the state Opportunity Zone program for the infrastructure work, and state officials secured $2 million in capital grants last year, as well.

The infrastructure work will total around $5.2 million, and the city is planning to loan itself the remaining $2.2 million from its $5 million general fund reserve. The funds will be paid back through tax revenue generated in the Fargo Creek tax increment financing district, which includes the Gateway Project.

“We’re going to start seeing a lot happening in the spring,” City Manager Danny Langloss said. “We’re going to be breaking ground on all the public infrastructure – water, watstewater, curb, gutter, lighting, roads, everything to do with pubic infrastructure – and while that’s going on at the same time, we’re going to have a restaurant, a hotel, a multi-tenant building, another 15,000-square-foot building and another project going on at the same time.”

Businesses taking up shop in the Gateway footprint are yet to be announced, but they’ll likely start opening up by the end of the year.

“What we’ll see by the end of the summer/early fall, is all of our infrastructure will be done, and by Novemberish, by the end of the year, you’ll actually start seeing businesses opening up in that development,” Langloss said.

Site work to level the ground started shortly after breaking ground but was delayed because developers had to redraw plans to accommodate a second gas station. The council approved final amended plat lines for the project in September.

Gateway is being developed by Xsite Real Estate of Burr Ridge and Walsh Partners of Elmhurst. Xsite is the developer of Presidential Parkway Plaza, the four-building project north of Walmart along the south side of Keul Road. The city, the Lee County Industrial Development Association and Sauk Valley Bank also are partners in the project.

The council voted in February to award Oregon-based Martin & Co. Excavating the $4.87 million contract for the infrastructure work.

[ Dixon City Council OKs $4.8 million infrastructure work for Gateway Project ]

In 2021, the council approved annexation agreements across 657 acres, including land for the Gateway Project, after years of working with landowners and developers to open up new opportunities in the area.

The Gateway project will be in one of two new tax increment financing districts the city created. It will be in the Fargo Creek TIF, which has boundaries roughly covering First Street to the north, Peoria and Chicago avenues to the east, I-88 to the south and Depot Avenue and Pump Factory Road to the west. The other is the Industrial Park TIF south of I-88, between South Galena Avenue and U.S. Route 52.