The Taylorville Kiwanis Club heard about the new Taylorville Industrial Park during their weekly luncheon Tuesday.
Long-time community leader Ken Hart, who is community president at People’s Bank and Trust, and also the president of the Taylorville Development Association which is developing the new 47-acre Industrial Park between Illinois Routes 104 and 29 on the west side of the city, gave Kiwanis members a history of economic development dating back to 1953 when the first organization was formed to create an industrial park for the city.
Hart then took Kiwanis members thru the many years of work with the first industrial park across from the Taylorville Airport, only to find out it had mine subsidence issues.
Hart and community leaders then approached Archer Daniels Midland about a purchase or donation of land on the city’s northeast side. Hart recounted the C-E-O at the time stopping when she was going to sign the deed to donate the property to the Taylorville Development Association, questionnning why A-D-M was giving up millions of bushels of grain and liquid storage. T-D-A ended up buying 84 acres from A-D-M for a proposed industrial park, only to find there was not adequate sewers to connect to.
T-D-A, according to Hart, ended up swapping 97 acres owned by the Fred Hopper Estate, with the 84 acres T-D-A owned, and that site is what’s being developed for Taylorville’s new Industrial Park.
Hart said that thanks to a 537-thousand dollar matching grant from the Economic Development Administration, engineering work is being done at the moment on constructing curb and gutter, roads, and utilities to the site. Hart told the club how T-D-A raised their matching share.
Hart added he’s hopeful the project will be put out for bid next spring.
The Taylorville Kiwanis Club is part of global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time. Weekly meetings are held Tuesdays at noon at the Taylorville Memorial Hospital auditorium. For information on the club, go to taylorvillekiwanis.com.
