While long considered the most logical site for a downtown university
presence, city officials made it clear Tuesday that the city-owned
Y-block is just one option on the table.
An ordinance declaring
the city’s support for an effort to bring a university presence to
downtown Springfield sailed through the city council’s Committee of the
Whole Tuesday evening, but not before adopting an amendment that
significantly broadened the language to be less site-specific.
“The
other way it was written, it was a little Y-block-heavy, so to speak,”
said Mayor Jim Langfelder. “And really, the intent is to just support
the university developments downtown that could be.”
According to
the proposed ordinance, “the city of Springfield is in full support of” a
proposed downtown development that would be shared by the University of
Illinois Springfield and Southern Illinois University.
The
original ordinance was site-specific, leaning heavily on the Y-block
site as a future location for the proposed campus. But Langfelder said
the change in language was prompted by a meeting with state Sen. Andy
Manar, D-Bunker Hill, and officials from UIS and SIU, who sought not to
limit themselves to the constraints of a one city block.
This story appeared in The State Journal-Register on July 31, 2019.
Read the entire story online.
