The city of Aurora is considering two loans totaling $450,000 to help create a new diner in downtown’s Terminal Building.
The restaurant would be owned by chef Jamie Gilmore, who currently runs Lizzy J Cafe in Chicago’s Fulton Market District. While that restaurant currently focuses on brunch, the diner proposed to be opened in Aurora would also serve lunch and dinner as well as include a bar, Gilmore told the Aurora City Council’s Committee of the Whole on Tuesday evening.
The diner’s food would be based on “soul food and New Orleans-based food,” but expanded to an international appeal to not “limit things,” she said.
According to a staff report about the project included with the committee meeting’s agenda, the Aurora restaurant is proposed to be located in the same location as the former Broadway Diner in the first floor of the Terminal Building at the corner of Galena Boulevard and Broadway, which is the same building that holds the Lofts on Broadway.
“As one who has formerly patronized the old Broadway Diner many years ago — in fact, I grew up eating there with my family — it’s good to have a quality restaurateur back in downtown Aurora at this space,” Ald. Mike Saville, 6th Ward, said at the meeting. “We wish you all the best.”
Gilmore’s proposed restaurant is described by the staff report as a “sophisticated diner with affordable prices.” At Tuesday’s meeting, she said patrons could expect to spend $35-$40 if a person wants to eat and drink, with individual entrees costing around $15-$17.
The staff report about the project said people who attend the Paramount Theatre often comment that they would like to see more dining options within walking distance of the theater. Gilmore said the restaurant would offer a special dinner time with a specific menu for theater-goers.
One of the two loans that the city of Aurora is considering for this project would go to Urban Equity Properties, which redeveloped the Terminal Building several years ago, and that $200,000 loan would be an amendment of the city’s redevelopment agreement with the company.
The loan to Urban Equity Properties is expected to be paid back over 10 years with 5.5% interest and is being guaranteed by the company, according to the staff report.
The city is also considering loaning $250,000 to the restaurant directly, which would be paid back to the city through sales taxes and food and drink taxes that would come to the city from the property, said David Dibo, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development.
He told the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday that Gilmore is also personally guaranteeing this loan, so if those taxes do not pay back the loan in nine years, she is personally responsible to pay the city back.
The model was based on what Dibo said was the success of the city’s incentives to JH Partners Real Estate for the two restaurants in downtown it helped to develop.
In addition to the two loans, Urban Equity Properties would put in its own $350,000 and Gilmore would put in her own $100,000 into the project, Dibo said.
The loan’s funds would come from the city’s Transformation Fund, which was established after the city received $16 million from a redevelopment deal with Cyrus One last year to build a second data center location in the city, according to Aurora Chief Financial Officer Chris Minick. He said the city put aside $9 million of that $16 million to create the Transformation Fund for economic development, with the idea that the funds would be loaned out and repaid with interest, creating a self-perpetuating fund.
Jeff Orduno, Urban Equity’s chief operating officer, said the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the company’s redevelopment of the Terminal Building because its costs increased by 30%-40% and it lost the restaurant that was expected to go in the building’s first floor.
If the two loans are approved by the Aurora City Council at its meeting next week, then the currently proposed restaurant is set to open near the end of this year or in the first quarter of next year, Orduno said.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
