Janesville City Council Takes First Step Toward Acquiring GM property

The city will now notify property owners, including Commercial Development Company that owns the GM and JATCO parcels, of its decision to issue relocation orders to them.

City Manager Kevin Lahner said in an interview last week that the next step would be a condemnation process and then the purchase of the properties following a circuit court process in which a judge would approve the price offered by the city.

Lahner said the city could close on the purchases before the end of the calendar year.

The five other properties are Frank Silha & Sons Excavating at 530 Kellogg Ave., DJF Enterprises at 1412 S. Jackson St., Zoxx Social Club at 411 W. State St., Jaines LLC at 1200 S. Jackson St. and a garage owned by Andrew R. Sigwell at 1212 S. Jackson St.

“This is an opportunity to continue to rebuild our legacy. The benefits of this step allow us to control our destiny, access to other funding sources, and build a vision together. Collectively, we can create a site that is ready to market, develop, see additional investments in the surrounding areas, and ultimately improve the quality of life,” Lahner told the council Monday night.

Jimsi Kuborn, the city’s economic development director, said the city will obtain appraisals and enter into a good faith negotiation with each of the property owners. She said occupied properties will get relocation benefits.

Atty. Chris Smith of the Vaughan Grayson law firm, said the council will be involved every step of the way, including voting to move forward with the purchase of each individual parcel.

The council’s questions on Monday night revolved around cost and what would be factored into that. Council members were given no actual cost figures on Monday on either the purchase price or cleanup.

Council member Dave Marshick asked if unpaid taxes on the GM/JATCO site, that amount to several hundred thousand dollars, could offset the purchase cost.

Smith said yes, that after an appraisal the unpaid taxes could be factored in.

Kuborn said as has been the process with the Woodman’s Sports and Convention Center, on which ground was broken last week, city staff would provide updates to the council as the process moves ahead.

The GM plant was idled in 2009. Together with the adjacent JATCO site it spreads out over about 250 acres. The entire site was purchased in 2017 by Commercial Development Company, which specializes in brownfield redevelopment.

If it goes forward, Lahner said this would be the single largest investment in the city’s history, setting the future course for the former GM site, the south side, and the city as a whole.

Steps toward renewal of the site included the recent creation of a new tax incremental finance district that encompasses 7 parcels that make up the former main GM plant site and the adjacent JATCO property, as well as properties in the surrounding neighborhood.

Lahner and Kuborn said the future process, once the city acquires the site, would include bringing the Janesville community into the process, to hear its ideas for what to do with it. Lahner said the city’s tentative intent would be to ultimately resell the site.

Lahner said last week that the GM/JATCO site remains zoned for industrial use, but it’s not locked into that use going forward. How it will be able to be used in the future depends in part on how well it’s cleaned up, he said.

He said the tentative vision is to clean the site up as much as possible, both to make it shovel-ready for new development and to open possibilities for other non-industrial types of uses.

Kuborn said renewing a long-blighted area would stem the loss of property value in the area surrounding the former plant and has great potential to spur other economic development on the south side.

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