As the state’s largest city south of Springfield, Belleville boasts the tagline ‘Capital of Southern Illinois.’ The community of 41,000 enjoys the charm of a small town with the advantages of a larger metro area. St. Louis is just 20 minutes away by MetroLink, which runs through Belleville to conveniently connect residents with nearby amenities. This enviable location, in addition to the amenities offered within Belleville itself, differentiates the city from similarly sized communities. After detailing these advantages in 2015, Business in Focus checked back in this year to learn about the progress that the city has made over the last decade.
Local leaders have made a concerted effort to support specific sectors—including manufacturing, information technology, transportation, and warehousing—with incentive programs. “We’re really trying to reinvent and utilize them as we move forward,” says Economic Development Director Clifford Cross. For instance, the city’s Enterprise Zone program supports prospective businesses through sales tax abatement related to site development. “That’s a big one, especially now with the [rising] cost of material,” Cross says. This tax break essentially “brings the cost back to what it would have been, six, seven, eight years ago. So that’s an incentive that we really like to use if we can.”
At over nine square miles, Belleville’s Enterprise Zone is large enough to allow a significant number of developing businesses to take advantage of the offer.
Businesses can also take advantage of Belleville’s multiple Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, which allow the city to enter into individual development agreements with prospective developments and businesses. “They can provide them a myriad of things that range from property tax abatement all the way through special business district tax incentives to help fund projects, either through reimbursement of cost or potential bonding and infrastructure programs,” Cross explains.
Local leaders are strategically approaching development with a new, carefully thought-out plan. “The City of Belleville just completed and adopted its first ever comprehensive economic development strategy,” Cross says. “What that economic development strategy focused on was the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that any community faces. And what we also did was identify how we could best move forward in promoting business, attracting business, retaining business, working with larger business partners, working with mom and pops, and, ultimately, looking at it in terms of, ‘how do we best move forward as a city?’” he explains.
The new economic development plan specifically emphasizes partnerships with Belleville’s neighboring communities and promotes the area’s lifestyle advantages. “In today’s world, I think economic development is really about a more regional approach and the quality of life that you offer your business partners and their employees, and the families that already live here or could potentially come here,” says Cross.
As a result, “Our economic development strategy really focused on the need for us to be good governmental or inter-governmental partners with our local businesses, with our neighboring communities, with the county, and quite honestly, the region as a whole,” he continues. “We’ve opened up the eyes of the community and our potential businesses [to the fact] that we’re not just focused on what’s best for Belleville, but what’s best for Belleville while benefiting the county and the region as a whole. We’ve looked at that as, ‘let’s be successful for St. Clair County, the region, and the State of Illinois.’”
At present, Belleville is in the process of implementing technology to attract new businesses and showcase the city’s advantages. “One of the things we’re looking to do is get a little more up to date,” Cross shares. “We’re really looking at taking our software and our technology and creating some sort of tracking system that helps us identify and track our businesses and our business partners.”
Such a database would give the city the ability to target businesses that are the best fit for Belleville. The city will likely partner with an outside organization to help identify retail strengths and needs and develop a plan that utilizes that information to “promote our community to those businesses that are the best fit for us.” The goal is to “promote Belleville not only regionally, but nationally, and get our story out there.” This communication will emphasize to business owners that the city has “that quality of life that meets their demands.”
Certainly, Belleville has the infrastructure needed to support incoming business, especially along the Route 15 corridor, which the city is working to promote. “We’re in a pretty good position,” Cross says. “We think we’ve got the infrastructure in place; it’s just a matter of reinventing that corridor and re-promoting that corridor.”
The city is putting a particular emphasis on anchor developments, which will then naturally lead to additional development. “We need to bring in those anchor developments that will bring people here, and that’s what we’ve really focused on—building anchored developments to attract other businesses that come with them in strategic points throughout the city, utilizing that infrastructure,” Cross explains. “It’s just a matter now of finding the perfect partners and the anchor developments to build around that infrastructure.”
With a solid plan firmly in place, the city is more than ready to welcome these anchor developments—and much more. “We’ve developed that road map and how we’re going to strategically move forward with that road map. That gives us the tools to move forward [and] redevelop in certain areas that need it and then have new development that really is appropriate in moving the city forward, while focusing on the healthy balance of the live/work/play environment.”
With a roadmap already laid out for healthy development, the next concerted effort will be on getting the word out. “We want to promote that high quality of life and sustainable economic growth and development,” says Cross. “We think that will bring in the business, once we tell that story. That’s the big thing: once we let people know we’re here and open for business—that we’re prepared—we’re really going to take off and move forward with our economic growth and development.”
City leaders will be careful to preserve the character of the community while welcoming this rush of new development. “The major planning goal for us is to ensure that we continue to cherish the character of our downtown,” Cross says. “So whatever way we go from an economic development standpoint, we want to keep our downtown as the crown jewel it is.”
When looking ahead, another future goal is to continue that strong focus on bringing new business to Route 15. “We want to reinvest and really focus on Route 15 and what we can bring there because, like all communities, we need to have that economic growth. Communities need to have that sales tax-generating revenue to be successful; that’s just the reality of today’s world. But we want to have that without taking away the charm and the beauty of a 200-plus-year-old community.”
This vision for the future requires careful planning, which, fortunately, is already accomplished, giving the city the guidance needed for lasting success. As Cross summarizes, “We’re taking a strategic approach in how to move forward to become a sustainable economic partner throughout St. Clair County, Metro East, and in the State of Illinois.”
