When the Springfield City Council voted July 1 to expand the way revenue can be spent from two tax-increment financing districts to improve homes and businesses on the economically challenged east side, a council member from the west side asked the proposal’s sponsors: “What are we trying to fix that’s broken?” The main sponsor, Ward […]
Dean Olsen
Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer for Illinois Times. He can be reached at:
dolsen@illinoistimes.com, 217-679-7810 or @DeanOlsenIT.
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Chelsey Farley tells her story
Chelsey Farley burst into tears while speaking with a reporter almost 10 months after a motorcycle she was riding on collided with a car driven by a recently retired Springfield police officer. Farley, 32, cried as she explained why she was wearing a medical boot to stabilize the lower section of her left leg. She […]
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Innovate Springfield moving to Horace Mann building
University of Illinois Springfield has pivoted from plans to open its new “Innovation Center” in a three-story building downtown and now will rent space for the center three blocks east, on half of the third floor inside Horace Mann Educators Corp.’s headquarters. A rental contract, finalized between UIS and Horace Mann in recent days, will […]
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Jerome plans to create TIF district
An average of 25,000 to 27,000 cars drive on Wabash Avenue through Jerome each day, making that stretch of road one of the busiest in the Springfield area. The commercial and retail corridor appears bustling. But side roads and underground utility lines that are undersized and deteriorating, as well an almost total lack of sidewalks […]
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County coroner’s office opens in former SJ-R building
Coroners speak for the dead. In doing so, they play a key role in bringing accountability to the living. That’s why Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon was emotional when he spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for his recently opened regional morgue in the former State Journal-Register building in Springfield. “We’re in a position now to […]
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Reducing racial disparities in traffic stops
A voucher program that helps motorists fix safety equipment on their cars is about to begin with hopes of preventing future traffic stops in Springfield that could lead to arrests or confrontations with police. That is one result of talks with representatives of the Springfield chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and Springfield Police […]
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A plan to save downtown
Four development groups have told Sangamon County officials they may be interested in building a 200- to 300-bed hotel on a county-owned parking lot along South Ninth Street and collaborating with the county to double the size of the BOS Center. County officials declined to reveal names of the groups that expressed interest through responses […]
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Future of Wyndham is uncertain
It may be many months before the Wyndham Springfield City Centre Hotel can reopen. The 370-room, 30-story hotel at 700 E. Adams St. in downtown Springfield was damaged by internal flooding on March 27 and has been closed since then. An initial estimate from the Wyndham’s owner that the hotel would be closed for up […]
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Economic gaps persist for Blacks
When Astria Campbell works as a substitute teacher at inner-city schools in District 186, she often asks her middle and high school students what they want to be when they grow up. The most common answer is to work in the same low-wage jobs as their parents. Campbell, 42, who grew up in a working-class […]
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Bringing office workers back to downtown
A Springfield company is asking the city for $2.6 million in TIF revenue to help renovate the long-vacant former AT&T building downtown so the 128,000-square-foot structure can be rented as office space to house more than 300 government employees. Christopher Stone, part-owner and managing member of Springfield Partners IV LLC, the company making the TIF […]
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Sean Grayson’s trial moved to Peoria
The trial of the former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy accused of murdering Sonya Massey in July 2024 will take place in Peoria County with jurors who live there, Circuit Court Judge Ryan Cadagin decided April 8. The judge ruled in favor of a motion filed by attorneys for Riverton resident Sean Grayson, 30, to move […]
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From bedsides to the boardroom
Edgar Curtis was 17 and a junior at Lanphier High School when an aunt he was particularly close to died from cancer at 47 after a 100-day stay at Springfield Memorial Hospital. During the many visits he made during her decline, Curtis said he noticed “the kind heart and compassionate care” that his aunt received […]
