Remember “Project Hammer,” the big food manufacturing and warehousing project that ended up unmasked as Ferrara Candy? We offered them a lot of incentives to come here. The incentives are flowing because that was the only way Ferrara would choose DeKalb for its new facilities over a city in Wisconsin, city leaders told us. From…
Category: Warehouse Mania
Hey, We Got a Bouquet Today
The Daily Chronicle, in its editorial-page “Barbs & Bouquets” list, today presented a bouquet to the folks who questioned the Rockefeller/Keating business-park project this time last year: Bouquet – Bravo to the DeKalb City Council and the DeKalb Township residents whose questions about a proposed south-side industrial park led to the developer’s bitter withdrawal of…
Allentown 1, Rockefeller 0
[Updated with links 12/16/2006] Remember Allentown, N.J.? Last June found residents fighting hard against another Rockefeller Godzilla Warehouse project just as some of us in DeKalb were this time last year. Click here to link to that article. A visitor to citybarbs at that time, Wayne R. Smith of Allentown has returned today to leave…
We are Cannibals
Our property taxes are becoming too burdensome to bear. Yet we can’t pay for our schools. We’ve invented impact fees to pay for our schools but that increases the cost of our homes, which leads to higher property taxes once again. We homeowners get stuck coming and going. In effect, we’re cannibalizing ourselves to make…
New Plan for the Keating Property
The 343-acre Keating property southeast of DeKalb–encompassed by Route 23, Gurler Road and Crego Road–was sold months ago to developer Jerry Krusinski. This week, Mr. Krusinski unveiled his plans for the land at the Plan Commission meeting.
Welcome, Allentown, New Jersey!
[Updated 6/11.] Rockefeller Group, inconvenienced enough in DeKalb to shake the Midwest topsoil off its shoes and head back toward the coasts, wants to develop some 320 acres for logistics enterprises along the New Jersey Turnpike in the vicinity of Allentown, NJ, a plan comparable to their failed warehouse mega-project on 343 acres on the…
Warehousing, dissecting the arguments for making it DeKalb’s premier industry
I find this whole argument over warehousing quite interesting. From the one side you have those who believe DeKalb can do better than this for its industrial base. For reference, I lean towards this side. There are others who believe that warehousing is the only industry we should seek out. There have been several arguments…
Rockefeller picks up ball, goes home
We knew something was up at last week’s City Council meeting because one of Mr. Keating’s people got dissed by the Rockefeller lawyer. That’s right, Mr. Keating’s realtor told the Council that legally re-routing traffic around the downtown area–even though it’s a state route going through, therefore by law a truck route–would be no problem-o…
Thank You, Northern Star
I would be remiss if I didn’t express my appreciation about an edited version of the “Open Letter to Kris Povlsen” appearing yesterday in the Perspective section of the Star. That same letter plus three previous LTTEs critical of the Business Center project were ignored by the Daily Chronicle. After this frustrating and disillusioning shutout,…
Open Letter to Alderman Kris Povlsen, 12/1
Mr. Povlsen: At last Monday’s City Council meeting, when the Council voted to approve tax abatements and fee waivers for the newest 3M project in town (“Project Oak”), you commented that some people misperceive such incentives as corporate welfare, whereas you would encourage us to think of these incentives as investments in our future. Mr.…