We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address and telephone number. We edit all letters. Send them to editor@illinoistimes.com.
NEED RESIDENTS
If you want to revive downtown, you need a base of downtown residents (Springfield City Council SeeGov highlight reel, Sept. 2). The downtown merchants can’t rely on only tourist traffic. The Wyndham hotel tower, converted into condos and apartments, would create a solid, reliable base of daily foot traffic for blocks around. Whether it’s a rehabbed Wyndham or a whole new apartment building, you need people living downtown to get people shopping downtown.
It’s not clear that additional hotel rooms would make a difference at this point versus a residential base – times have changed and travel patterns with them. A downtown college campus or apartment block would be a better economic driver than a larger hotel.
Mark Suszko
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes
NEED APARTMENTS
It will cost more than $100 million to rehab the Wyndham and get it going again. No restaurant will move in there. That used to be a premier spot, but those days are gone. Turn it into apartments or tear it down. I never thought I’d see my hometown without the Forum 30, but here we are.
Doyle Hargraves
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes
LOOK FOR WINS
I was pleased to read that a local family is reopening a restaurant downtown. In light of the narrative that “downtown is dying,” one would think the comments on social media would be all positive. They mostly were, but a handful of the usual suspects just had to find fault with this restaurant’s business plans. What miserable people!
I am beginning to wonder if Springfield’s problems are not pathological in nature. Perhaps the problem is not that downtown is dying or that the city council and mayor aren’t doing enough. Maybe some of the problem is that we have a “glass half-empty” outlook instead of taking stock of what we do have.
I think Springfield needs to start celebrating the wins. This isn’t to say I am oblivious to the real challenges. However, the real challenges have less capacity for resolution when we find fault with everything else. There is only so much bandwidth to go around for solving problems, and the real ones need all the attention we can give them.
If you need some examples of wins, let’s think about the fact that we have a weekly alternative newspaper in Springfield when many cities have none. Or perhaps how local leaders are pushing for transformative projects that create a backbone for more wins: railroad relocation and the Third Street greenway project. Both projects will change how people get around, with the greenway providing the key to giving non-motorized travel a real chance to grow.
Social media is designed to amplify negativity. If we open our eyes and look for the wins, they are abundant. We need to start doing that so we can give the rest of our focus to resolving the real challenges.
Steven Simpson-Black
Springfield
OFFENSIVE ORDER
The executive order prohibiting transgender individuals from serving in the military is predicated on a partisan “opinion” that such individuals are not worthy to “volunteer” for duty because they are “beyond the pale” of decency; i.e. morally corrupt (“Trump’s trans ban affects Chatham resident,” Sept. 4). To display such untoward callousness toward members of the military is an affront to all who serve.
Mary Donley
Springfield
GREAT IDEA
I had no idea this was in Springfield, but as a former classical headmaster, it’s great to see San Damiano leaning into (rather than avoiding) the humanities and the trades (“Learning trades and theology,” Sept. 4). Bravo, and kudos to Illinois Times for reporting it.
Craig Dunham
Springfield
This article appears in September 25-October 1, 2025.
