Aurora is considering an incentive to help a well-known St. Charles restaurant locate along Broadway downtown.
The owners of the Grateful Ordinary, which opened several years ago in a remodeled bank building in downtown St. Charles, are looking to open an Italian osteria in a building at 7 S. Broadway.
Officials in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development have said they are in the final stages of negotiating a deal with restaurant owners Chris and Mehgan Curren, as well as their developers Frontier Development, LLC, owned by Conrad and Curt Hurst.
The deal would be for a renovation costing a little more than $1.6 million of the 7 S. Broadway building. Under the proposed redevelopment agreement, the city would give an incentive worth about half of that, or $827,094.
The incentive would be a grant of $413,547 and a forgivable loan of the same amount.
David Dibo, Aurora’s Economic Development director, presented some details of the arrangement last week to the City Council Finance Committee. The deal is not finalized, but he said he will present final details Tuesday at the council’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
Dibo said the Grateful Ordinary has gotten rave reviews, and the owners were looking to develop another restaurant in the area.
“They were being solicited by a number of municipalities,” he said. “They liked downtown Aurora, and they fell in love with the building.”
As part of the deal, the owners would not only pay the first half of the redevelopment cost, but the about $100,000 to purchase the 3,200-square-foot building from the city.
Because the city owns the building, it has not been on the tax rolls. When the ownership is transferred back into private hands, it would begin generating property taxes of about $3,000 a year.
Dibo said with the redevelopment, the taxes generated are estimated to go up to $21,000 a year. The property is in Tax Increment Financing District 10, which means the increase, or about $18,000 a year, would go into the increment.
“Today, it’s not generating any real estate taxes,” Dibo said.
Dibo said the restaurant is estimated to generate about $1.5 million in receipts a year, also paying sales taxes and the city’s food and beverage tax. That would generate $60,000 to $70,000 a year in those taxes, he said.
In addition to putting in about 100 to 110 seats in the building, the restaurant would utilize the small park, known as the Skinny Park, next door for outdoor seating, and possibly also the Water Street Mall.
Alex Minella, of the city’s Economic Development department, said the Italian restaurant would be an osteria or bistro, in which the owner or chef is part of the experience.
The chef at the Grateful Ordinary has developed a following, and Ald. Carl Franco, 5th Ward, Finance Committee chairman, said the St. Charles restaurant is “close” to earning a Michelin star – a huge benchmark for any restaurant.
“These chefs got it going,” he said. “This is a pretty good catch.”
Minella said the osteria would differ from the recently-opened Amore Mio in downtown in that Amore Mio is considered a white tablecloth restaurant, and is more expensive.
Another Italian restaurant is going to open in the Hobbs Building at River Street and Galena Boulevard, and Minella said that will be a less expensive, very informal restaurant catering to larger groups.
The proposed osteria on Broadway would be between those two other restaurants price-wise.
“The customers can entertain dialogue with the restaurant owners,” he said of the proposed new restaurant. “It’s a niche restaurant.”
slord@tribpub.com
