The Taylorville Kiwanis Club heard about Taylorville’s new Industrial Park from a long-time community leader, during their weekly luncheon Tuesday at the club’s new meeting place, the Taylorville Moose Lodge.
Ken Hart has been the long-time president of the Taylorville Development Association, and outlined his group’s efforts to establish a new Industrial Park just off Illinois Route 29 on Taylorville’s northwest side.
Hart told Kiwanis Club members that Taylorville’s efforts to build an industrial park date back to 1953 when a for-profit corporation was formed locally. It built and maintained the first industrial park, located on South Spresser across from the Airport.
Hart added that mine subsidence was discovered in the 1980’s at that location. It was sold and a new non-profit corporation, the Taylorville Development Association, was formed.
Hart said that it wasn’t until 2008 when T-D-A purchased over 80 acres on Taylorville’s northeast side from Archer Daniels Midland, or A-D-M, only to discover that the Taylorville Sanitary District couldn’t provide adequate sewer service to the location.
In 2013, Hart told the Kiwanis Club that the T-D-A traded the A-D-M property, for 97 acres between Illinois Routes 29 and 104, which is the present site. 51 acres were sold with 47 kept. Monies raised from the selling of a portion of the present property, enabled T-D-A to win a 537-thousand dollar infrastructure matching grant from the Economic Development Administration in December 2017.
Since that time, Hart told the Kiwanis Club, the T-D-A has been working on utility easements, and permits from the Illinois Department of Transportation. Those IDOT permits, Hart said, were approved in July of this year.
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 their new meeting location, the Taylorville Moose Lodge. For information on the club, go to taylorvillekiwanis.com.
