Normal Council passed a resolution giving approval to the Town to proceed towards signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Eagle View Partners for the Trail East and Trail West Project at its meeting on Monday night.
Something similar happened when the town passes an MOU for the underpass. This is essentially a letter of intent. The underpass kept moving forward because the Town was hooked to the MOU contract.
Stan Nord, a Council member, is questioning just how transparent the Town of Normal is being with the developer of Trail East and Trail West. Kevin McCarthy in last night’s meeting seemed to be unaware of an agreement tied to the development of these buildings.
The agreement says: With respect to the ground floor restaurant, the agreement calls for that restaurant to be a “fine dining restaurant” which is defined as a full service sit-down restaurant with an upscale menu and extensive beverage offerings. The Town shall have approval authority over the selection of the restaurant to ensure compliance with the Town’s objectives. We understand that the development team will be selecting an operator for the restaurant in the very near future.
Nord said the vacant first floor is suppose to be restaurant and Nord said he brought that up to the developer and asked if the developer, Eagle View Partners, if they were aware that the Town has the above agreement.
“‘Are you aware that the town has this agreement and they may restrict you, so it is not going to be open to allow anybody to move into your space?’ Kevin McCarthy, the mayor pro-tem, last night said that the town doesn’t have an agreement.”
McCarthy said the agreement does not specify a restaurant. A confused Nord asked Pam Reece, the city manager, to clarify the agreement. Reece did not clarify the agreement for the record.
“Mr. Nord tonight to talk about the agreement of another property,” said McCarthy.
This project has been in the works for the past 20 years. In 2016, McCarthy voted for this approval below:
The Town has approval authority over the selection of the restaurant that will occupy the Project. The Developer may not, either directly or through the Holding Company, enter into a contract with any vendor to operate a restaurant in the Project without the prior written consent of the Town
“If they’re not being open and transparent about existing agreements with buildings that are built on that same circle with this developer, then that’s not good faith I don’t believe,” said Stan Nord. “He needs to realize: ‘Here’s what the Town has done before’ and he needs to decide if he wants to look into this and to make sure this isn’t in his agreement.”
Could the developer pull out?
“The Town has put the football on the field by creating this MOU. The ball is going to be moved forward. Because every time this conversation is brought up, the staff is going to say, ‘If we didn’t want to take this all the way to the end zone…why did we even put the ball on the field?’ I don’t think it is ever going to back out. It will take a dramatic change on the council or the public starts paying attention,” said Nord.
