Dear Geneva City Council:
The Geneva Pharmacy at 501 East State Street is for sale for $400K. It opened less than a year ago. The for-sale ad does not suggest that the business is being sold as a going concern.
501 E State St, Geneva, IL 60134 – Retail Property for Sale – 501 E. State Street (crexi.com)
By the way, the for-sale ad lists a drive-thru on State as an amenity. Of course, you denied the Geneva Pharmacy applicant a drive-thru because one of you lives up the street. Somehow the truth is always the first of the many casualties when the City of Geneva acts. The applicant said his business plan would not work without a drive-thru. He was right.
Thanks only to inflation, TIF 2 “worked” at 501 E. state…the property tax doubled from 2002-2021 even in the face of the “Great Recession.” Last year TIF2 took $4K of the $7k total property tax while the schools got $2K. The Geneva Tax Assessor now lists the fair cash value as $247K. But the TIF only worked to fund your slush fund. The only other thing that “incremented” was the tax bill of every City of Geneva property owner and many others outside the City.
So the news is not good. You might recall that I suggested that the pharmacy use was ill-advised and inconsistent with Geneva’s Comprehensive Plan. Plus another drive-thru was the last thing needed on East State Street. (How’s that Dunkin’ coming?) May-13-Public-Comment (geneva.il.us) But with the 2023 end of TIF2 fast approaching and the cash burning a hole in council members’ pockets, you greased through a TIF grant of $93.5K by amending text in the B3E zoning ordinance specifically for this one applicant (“spot zoning” in its purest form). See: Geneva OKs two TIF projects worth nearly $200,000 (dailyherald.com)
The applicant paid $265K for the property in 2021 (see tax bill) and claimed he invested $517K total in it, plus the $93.5 TIF2 gift for a total of $610,500.00. The applicant hopes to get back $400K for a 900-square-foot building.
So “but for” the TIF gift from the City of Geneva taxpayers (plus the money stolen from the taxpayers living outside the City but within other Geneva taxing bodies like school, library, and park districts), this fiasco might have been avoided. Geneva Pharmacy is yet another example of “Cummins’ Rule” which states “When the City of Geneva gets involved, it makes losers out of everyone.”
Please suspend all further activity in TIF2 and refund the remaining balance, if any, to the other taxing bodies in 2023 at its expiration. Help make Geneva affordable again.
Thank you.
Rod Nelson
ps: Let us hope that another even heavier shoe won’t drop due to this blunder. (See: Has Geneva TIFed Away Both Net Tax Revenue and the East Side CVS Pharmacy? – Rod’s Ramblings and Ruminations (genevanotes.com))
Rod's Ramblings and Ruminations 
How does the future widening of E State come into play with the businesses (mainly on that bend in the road) being for sale/lease? There are too many to count due to the different commercial real estate websites that do not show the amount in their entirety.
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The East State Project has been in “starts next year” status since 2010. The environmental survey was done in 2007. According to the City website, the current “start” will be in 2025! The “widening” has all but disappeared due to insufficient funds to acquire ROW. The “old plan” called for alternating left turn lanes. The newest one will put in continuous left/right turn center lanes that will be too short and too narrow. These will be like the one where a pedestrian was standing when she was killed a few months ago by a driver who may have been distracted by the scrolling billboard at the new meat market that the City gave $850K The alternating streets made the alternating dedicated left turn lanes practical; now one driver wanting to turn left into Nebraska from the east may end up front bumper to front bumper with another driver wishing to turn left onto Woodlawn from the west. The two streets are about 180 feet apart. Kansas and Woodlawn are only 100 feet apart.
Many state DOT guidelines suggest two-way left turn lanes (TWLTL) be at least a quarter mile long and 14 feet wide. East State Street is unique in the the cross streets alternate and some are as close together as 100 feet, as noted. Many of the curb cut do not meet IDOT standards and more curb cuts are on the drawing board. The Dunkin’ will not open until a redo of its curb cuts is done to IDOT specs.
Sidewalks will remain six inches from the semis in many places. The Dunkin’ (now in the fifth year and never opened) drive-through will stop semis coming up the hill causing massive air pollution with PM2.5 and BC (burned carbon soot). The feds partly funded the project with a grant of about $1.5 mil through CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation Air Quality). That money is evaporating due to inflation. The City has done everything in its power to thwart the purpose of the grant. The GIs in WWII called this a FUBAR. The F stands for the word that is becoming the most used in the English language; the rest of the acronym stands for “…Up Beyond All Recognition.” SNAFU was another favorite: SItuation Normal All F UP.
Meanwhile, the pavement is deteriorating partly due to all the patches needed to fix watermain breaks. An empty car carrier going by sounds like an ArmaLite-15.
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