Many have heard the news from this summer that the City Council voted to approve the purchase of the Lutticken Farm property. It was a long process to get there, and it was a very tough decision for the Council, but I believe it moves the City forward in a positive direction. Given the large budget and development implications of this decision, I wanted to spread awareness of the facts.

The property is just shy of 1,000 acres, which adds about 10% to the geographic size of Pekin. It is roughly located between Sheridan Road and Highway 98 and between McNaughton Park and California Road. The purchase does include Lutticken Lake and the hunting club/reserve. While the full purchase price of $14 million was approved, the City is paying for it over four years without being charged interest, and the City does not take actual ownership of the land until fully paid. Until then, the current owner has control over the property and intends to keep it running how it is. Once the City takes control, it is our intention to actively market the property to people who want to buy it and build homes and businesses.

There has long been a vision for the City to extend Veterans Drive up to I-474, and getting this property means we have most of the land needed to do that. As the City works to develop the road extension, we will be working hard to get private partners developing the rest of the site. Once fully-developed, the property should be valued at around $100 million, bringing more residents, jobs, goods, and services. The City also intends to be very collaborative with other public services providers to ensure the property has parks, schools, water towers, etc. ensuring smart growth of our community.

It was a hard decision to approve this amount of spending while also tightening in other areas of City funds, but I fall back to an analogy: just because you stop going out to dinner to save money doesn’t mean you stop contributing to your retirement savings. We can and should keep planning for our future while we correct our financial problems of today.

The City has to control its destiny, or someone else will, and this strategic acquisition sets Pekin up for the next generation.

September 4 Taste of Pekin

September 4-8 Pekin Marigold Festival

September 12 Pekin Farmers Market

September 21 Murder Mystery Dinner

September 28 Downtown Concert Series – Stone Cold Cowboys & Mixtape Mayhem

October 10 Pekin Farmers Market

December 6 Christmas on Court

Visit DiscoverPekin.com for a full, updated list of community events