MT. VERNON, IL (WSIL) --The land that was once the home of the Register-News will soon have a new purpose to support the community.
"Everyone hated it. Everyone wanted it gone," said Mt. Vernon mayor John Lewis of the former Register-News building. "
The one-acre land where the old building sat will one day be turned into a multi-purpose park to be used year-round.
"The Downtown community is thrilled about this. It's really their money," said Lewis. "There's a lot of traffic that goes through there and we want to grab their attention. We want it to be an attraction."
The Mt. Vernon City Council approved the start of the bidding process for the construction of the downtown plaza. Mayor Lewis says it's the next step in making this project a reality.
"Anything we can bring the families and kids down to the downtown area to shop at the shops and eat at our restaurants is a good thing," said Lewis.
And as Mayor Lewis sees it, the heart and soul of a community lies in its downtown area.
"It's gonna bring more restaurants downtown, hopefully more shops, but the downtown community, this is what they wanted," said Lewis. "They said, 'this is what would help 'em,' and we we're as excited as they are that we're now going to, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel." s
The project looks to be around $4 million with just over half coming from money from the downtown TIFF district and the rest through the city.
"So the council [Monday] just put in place some financing for the project and went out for bid," said Lewis. "So we can actually see how much it's gonna cost."
Mayor Lewis expects ground to be broken in the spring and construction to be completed on this phase to be completed in the fall.
"We're going to keep adding and adding and adding onto this plaza based on what the people say, [what] they want," said Lewis. "So it's not a gonna be a finished product. We want to make it big."
