Members Needed for Citizen Committee Aimed at Providing Guidance on JDC, Norris Hospital Solutions

By Jeremy Coumbes on February 1, 2025 at 6:49pm

The Jacksonville Developmental Center tops the list of blighted and vacant area properties at the center of a new citizens ad hoc committee currently in development.

Moving Jacksonville Forward aims to provide guidance from area citizens to the City of Jacksonville, Village of South Jacksonville, and Morgan County Commissioners on the direction of blighted properties in the area.

Local news editor Ben Cox is one of the organizers of the committee and says having family members who live near the JDC grounds along with his job as a reporter motivated him to write an op-ed piece for the Illinois Times last year which led to his involvement with the committee.

Every time you drive by there the smokestack on the old coal power plant leans a little bit more, things get grown up a little bit more, and then with my job, we’ve been at ground zero for a lot of the fires, the arrests and the problems. It just started sticking in my craw a little bit and I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. So I wrote the op-ed to kind of poke the bear and it drew some attention to some folks over in Springfield.

I had decided not to publish it here in Jacksonville because I figured okay, lawmakers will see it in a Springfield publication. And it really has been an abdication and a dereliction of duty by all forms of government from the top down. Democrats, Republicans, we’ve had a Democrat governor, and a Republican governor since the place closed and no one is doing anything about it.”

Last year the City of Jacksonville along with the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce and Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation conducted a survey asking the public for input on what to do with the JDC grounds. Nearly 500 residents responded with the vast majority favoring maintaining green space on the grounds with family-friendly entertainment activities as well as mixed-use retail options.

Cox says the committee is now the next step in that process to show both state government and potential grant providers that the citizens of the area have a stake and a voice in the future of the former JDC and beyond.

So this would be not just JDC too, this is also Norris Hospital, this is also one of the buildings on the AC Humko grounds, and we have a number of blighted neighborhoods. So we’re looking for people who are interested in seeing Jacksonville move those properties forward. JDC is obviously the number one priority.

We want citizens who kind of live within that Diamond, Michigan, South Main, West Morton area, in and around that block of JDC and some of these other properties to step forward and say- yeah, I’ll work with the city, I’ll work with JREDC, I’ll work the Chamber, Main Street- whoever I need to work with to see this move forward in the next three to five years because things are only going to get worse there.”

According to recent studies, the estimated cost to abate and raise the former Jacksonville Developmental Center is $67 million, with the old Norris Hospital on East State Street estimated at between $1 and $2 million.

Cox says the purpose of Moving Jacksonville Forward is for the committee to be a direct conduit of public input to the government entities regarding the public’s wishes on how these properties will help move the area forward economically, socially, and environmentally.

Anyone interested in serving on the committee, must have their permanent residence or be a business owner in the corporate limits of either the City of Jacksonville or the Village of South Jacksonville, have no affiliation of employment or standing with the city, the village, JREDC, the Chamber, or Main Street or its affiliates.

More information on the committee can be found via the Moving Jacksonville Forward Facebook page which also has a link to the online member application.