Saturday, November 21, 2009 East Central Illinois

Funds or no funds, Lincoln Hall renovation fete is on

By Tom Kacich
Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:30 AM CDT

URBANA – University of Illinois officials are planning to celebrate the beginning of the restoration of Lincoln Hall on Friday – even though the long-anticipated project is still without a primary funding source.

The state has yet to sell the bonds to finance $57 million worth of the Lincoln Hall work or billions of dollars' worth of other construction projects around the state.

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"I hope that Lincoln Hall is under way," said state Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, "but they've been promising that since I was a pup."

The UI has scheduled a "Lincoln Hall Restoration Kick-Off" at 4 p.m. Friday on the Quad side of the building, which is slated for a $65 million reconstruction over the next three years. Part of the celebration will include a guided tour of the building, which has been closed since mid-August. Lincoln pennies will be collected at the event, according to the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Web site, and will be incorporated into the reconstruction project.

The $31 billion capital plan approved by the Legislature last spring and signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn was supposed to upgrade infrastructure throughout the state and help generate construction jobs. Champaign County was slated for $203.3 million worth of construction projects, including four programs at the UI, two at Parkland College in Champaign and the $38 million redevelopment of the Lincoln's Challenge campus in Rantoul.

"This is a crucial economic recovery initiative that will generate what's needed most in Illinois: jobs, jobs, jobs," Quinn said at the time he signed the bill in July.

Historic Lincoln Hall on the UI Campus which is closed for renovation. By Vanda Bidwell

But no jobs have been created by the dormant capital program.

"I know labor is upset," Black said. "They gave the governor a lot of support for the capital bond program. There were things in there that we had to hold our noses about, but the needs probably trumped some of the opposition and concerns. Labor was a tremendous help in getting that passed. And now I know they're a bit perturbed that here we are, almost to November 1st, and no bonds have been sold."

Dan McCall, president of the East Central Illinois Building & Construction Trades Council, said he tells Quinn "every time I see him" that he's displeased that no progress has been made on selling the construction bonds.

"All I hear from him every time," McCall said, "is that our state finances aren't very good and we can't afford to do it right now.

"So I say to him, 'Well, we can't afford to have 30 percent of our construction workers unemployed.'"

Black said lawmakers also have asked Quinn administration officials about a bond sale.

"They just say, 'The timing's not right. Maybe our bond rating will go up,'" Black recounted. "To that one I can only say, what? That's optimistic thinking. With our debt I'd be afraid (the bond rating) would go down. I would have sold them a month ago."

Sen. Mike Frerichs, D-Champaign, said he too was told the state is waiting for its bond rating to improve.

"But I don't see what action has been taken in the last few months that would improve our bond rating," he said.

Frerichs said there eventually will be a capital program, but he doesn't know when.

Black noted that the Lincoln Hall work has been delayed several times before.

"I can think of at least three times during the Blagojevich administration that it was on the front burner and then pulled," he said. "Lincoln Hall may well have been a political pawn as much as anything else."

The work that has already begun at Lincoln Hall – a $343,000 contract for asbestos abatement – is being funded with university deferred maintenance money along with some gift funds, according to Mike Bass, the UI's associate vice president for capital programs and real estate services. The UI is providing about $6.3 million of the cost to restore Lincoln Hall with the "vast majority" coming from the state's capital program, Bass said.

When Quinn was in Champaign on Oct. 11, he said the construction bonds would be sold "very soon." A spokeswoman for the governor said Wednesday that part of the delay in issuing bonds is related to a lawsuit filed by Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, contesting the constitutionality of a liquor tax that is part of the revenue stream to back the bonds.

"That's a big holdup now," said spokeswoman Kelly Kraft.

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