Downtown Joliet gains national historic status, looks to boost development

The city of Joliet announced this week that the downtown now is a National Registered Historic District, a designation officials said should attract more tourists and developers.

Downtown is not the first section of Joliet to get such recognition.

Four other sections of Joliet are recognized as National Registered Historic Districts: the Cathedral Area, an older section of the east side, the old U.S. Steel site and the Old Joliet Prison.

But downtown is getting the designation at a time that the city is putting money into redevelopment and entrepreneurs are setting up shops.

Downtown could attract even more interest now that it is on the national register, city Planner Jayne Bernhard said.

“The benefit of having the downtown as a National Registered Historic District is that it provides property owners with tax credits if they want to do a redevelopment project and if they qualify for federal and state tax credits,” Bernhard said.

Developers must meet certain guidelines to qualify for the tax credits. However, Bernhard said, the designation does not impose any restrictions on property owners who do not seek the tax credits, leaving them free to make changes to their buildings as they see fit.

The national designation is seen as a step forward for a downtown area that has been attracting entrepreneurs opening shops as the city prepares for dramatic changes, including a city square to be built across from the Rialto Square Theatre and a redesigned Chicago Street to bring more business downtown.

There are travelers who will stop to see why an area has been designated as a National Registered Historic District, said Priscilla Cordero, executive director for the Joliet City Center Partnership, which promotes the downtown area.

“It gets us on the map as an historic district,” Cordero said, noting that travelers translate into spending downtown. “Those visitors eat and shop.”

Downtown Joliet, however, is hardly unique in the designation.

In announcing the designation, the city said that the downtowns of Plainfield, Lockport, Morris and other neighboring municipalities already are on the list of National Registered Historic Districts.

In Joliet, such districts already have been established four times:

• The East Side National Register Historic District was designated in 1980.

• The Upper Bluff National Register Historic District was established in the Cathedral Area in 1991.

• The Steel Works National Register Historic District was established in 1991.

• The Illinois State Penitentiary-Joliet National Register Historic District was approved in 2023.

Bernhard said she does not know why the downtown area, which has buildings going back to 1858 and includes the Rialto Square Theatre, was not designated as a historic district before now.

But she said the city has been working for the designation over the past several years while focusing more attention on downtown redevelopment.

“These things are all stacking up in a positive way,” Bernhard said.