It’s hard to believe, but it’s already been a year with the new city council and it’s been largely successful on the economic and development fronts.
Batavia has learned a lot as a town regarding what the actual issues are, where the community wants to go, and how to be more comfortable discussing and acting on real challenges.
Over the past twelve months, the Batavia City Council has worked to balance economic growth, new development, and community needs. A brief summary is below, with more planned for the upcoming year.
Economic Accomplishments
The city council focused on fixing the city’s budget, adding emergency personnel, and bringing new business into town.
- Balancing the Budget: To fix a budget deficit, the city passed a property tax increase for 2026 and 2027. This 10-cent increase will provide reliable funding for important services like the police and fire departments. This is partially offset by the school district retiring expiring bonds leading to slightly lower overall property taxes for some residents.
- New Hiring for Public Safety: Batavia added two firefighters to upgrade the fire squad’s medical response to Advanced Life Support (ALS) capabilities along with two additional policemen. The city also hired new management analysts to help run city departments more efficiently and apply for grant money.
- $500 Million Data Center: The city approved an agreement with Hut 8 Corp. to build a data center in the industrial area which will bring in millions in electrical fees and tax revenue yearly to help pay for infrastructure upgrades and needed replacements. To protect residents, the city forced the developer to pay $18 million upfront for necessary electrical upgrades so taxpayers wouldn’t foot the bill along with requiring more efficient water usage.
- QT9 Software Headquarters: Aurora-based QT9 Software is moving its headquarters to downtown Batavia, bringing a $12 million overall investment and 65 to 70 new employees. The city approved a $1.9 million incentive to support the move.
- Downtown Restaurant Grant: The city awarded a $150,000 grant to help fund a new upscale restaurant designed to revitalize a vacant downtown corner, create jobs, generate sales tax revenue, and increase foot traffic.
- Supporting Local Businesses: Seven local businesses won the 2025 Ole Award to recognize their investment and dedication to the Batavia community: Aldi Corporate Batavia, Earthmover Credit Union, Ignite Medical Resort, BEI Commercial Real Estate, Dollar & Sense Bookkeeping, Everdine’s Grilled Cheese Co., and Tesla, Inc. Additionally, the Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry & Clothes Closet and the Batavia Park District received Civic Impact Awards.
- New Local Businesses: The city welcomed several new small businesses to the 2026 Batavia Boardwalk Shops. Opening in May, these include new spots like Archives Chicagoland bookstore, Miss Lindy’s Bakery, Tabletop Game Shop, and Wallaby Wash and Detail, helping startups grow in the community. Additionally, the popular vintage store Warehouse 55 is relocating from Aurora to downtown Batavia, bringing nearly 50 dealers with it. Finally, the Tesla dealership opened for business along with Ignite Medical Resort. The east side of Batavia also retained a vital neighborhood grocery option when the family-owned Cinco de Mayo Market opened in the former Berkeley Finer Foods location, providing fresh produce, a bakery, and a popular deli.
Development Accomplishments
Batavia also invested heavily in affordable and new housing, safer streets, modern technology, and redeveloping old sites.
- New Housing Developments: The city approved and supported several major housing projects to bring hundreds of new homes. This includes the new “Ashton Ridge” subdivision featuring 159 total units (73 single-family homes and 86 townhomes), and the near-completion of the “Winding Creek” neighborhood which adds about 180 single-family homes.
- Public Workforce Housing: The city approved “The Residences at River Pointe,” a $24 million affordable housing project. Built on a former rock quarry at 400 South River Street, the four-story building will provide 72 units of workforce housing for residents at different income levels. The highly energy-efficient building will also feature at least 1,000 square feet of community garden space.
- Electric Vehicle Chargers: To promote clean energy, Batavia installed eight new Level 3 fast-charging stations for electric vehicles. Four chargers were placed at the Batavia Public Library and another four at Batavia High School. Funded in part by a $320,000 state grant, these “superchargers” can fully recharge a car battery in just 30 to 45 minutes.
- Redeveloping Older Buildings: The city is transforming the site of the former Tin Shop on North River Street into the new River Street Plaza, a public gathering space featuring accessible paths and self-cleaning public restrooms. Additionally, the city is actively seeking developers to build on other vacant downtown lots, such as the old Larson-Becker factory site. Private redevelopments also include QT9 renovating a 100-year-old factory at 190 S. Water Street, and Warehouse 55 taking over a historic warehouse building at 160 1st Street. To clear space for future plans, several aging structures are also scheduled for demolition, including a dilapidated quonset hut at 23 N. Water Street. Additionally, the historic, long-vacant Hubbard building (also known as the Ethan Allen building) at 14-18 North Batavia Avenue is proposed for demolition by the Batavia United Methodist Church to create green space and make room for future expansion.
- New Food Pantry Facility: The Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry and Clothes Closet successfully moved into a permanent, 14,000-square-foot facility at 916 First St. in October 2025. The city helped secure a $3 million federal grant to buy and renovate the building, allowing the pantry to double its space, expand storage, and add a loading dock to better serve the community.
- Lead Water Line Replacements: The city made major progress toward completely removing lead from its drinking water system. Over the past year, crews replaced 425 lead and galvanized steel water service lines, and they have already completed 110 more for the 2025–2026 season, bringing the project total to over 850 safe new lines.
- Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade: Batavia reached 98% completion on a nearly $44 million rehabilitation of its wastewater treatment plant. This massive infrastructure project includes a new building to process sewer flows, newly paved sites, and reconstructed clarifier tanks to meet modern environmental standards.
- Sidewalk Connectivity: Batavia received federal funding for the 2025 Safe Routes to School Sidewalk Program, which aims to improve sidewalk connectivity and build new pathways to local schools. The city also continued its annual sidewalk replacement program to fix defective panels and advanced a policy plan to add new sidewalks in neighborhoods where they do not currently exist.
- General Downtown Upgrades: The city improved bike trails and sidewalks.
- Safer Streets: The city completed a major phase of the “Road Diet” on Route 31, which narrowed lanes and successfully reduced the number of car crashes and their severity.
- Going Digital: Batavia launched a new website and mobile app, and started digitizing 1,000 boxes of old paper files to make city services faster and easier for residents to use.
- Civic Transparency: Launched in September 2025, the independent website batavia5thward.blog has become a worthwhile community resource. By leveraging transcription services and AI we now have transparent, accessible, and timely information about city council priorities and local government actions, helping to hold both elected officials and residents accountable. Additionally, it creates clarity and prevents “narrative highjacking” regarding local legislation and activity.
Unsuccessful or Contested Initiatives
Not every project succeeded. Several initiatives faced heavy criticism from residents.
- Stalled Energy Plan: The 20-year energy plan (Integrated Resource Plan) got heavy pushback from residents. Citizens demanded greener, more sustainable energy solutions instead of the recommendations received by the consultants in their first draft.
- Canceled Downtown Project Remnants: The “One Washington Place” project, which was supposed to bring 186 apartments and a parking garage to downtown, and completely canceled by the developer after years of delays, means we still have a lot of unsightly vacant land downtown. Activity has increased on this front and it’s hoped it can be addressed over the next two years.
- Historic Chimney Demolition: The city had to approve the full demolition of a historic industrial chimney at 25-31 North River Street. While the Historic Preservation Commission wanted to save part of it, engineering reports showed it was too severely decayed and unsafe to leave standing.
- Data Center Pushback: Despite its approval, some residents protested the new data center because they feared it would drain local power grids and water supplies.
- TIF and Zoning Concerns: Residents strongly criticized TIFs, arguing that freezing property taxes for wealthy developers takes money away from local schools. The city also has to deal with state proposals that threaten to take away Batavia’s local zoning control.
- Electric Vehicle Chargers: The adapters for the installed vehicle chargers are the legacy CCS type (per the requirements of the grant), but future plans will involve moving them to the new, long term, NACS standard.
- The Public Relief Fine: The city was forced to quickly pass an embarrassing $250 fine for public urination and defecation after realizing they had no specific law against it after getting reports of public defecation from business owners.
- Liquor Store “Optics”: We now have a cluster of liquor stores downtown with similar signage regarding “smoke” and “liquor”, the optics aren’t the greatest and there’s likely a need to legislate the signage involved with these establishments along with more awareness of where we’re issuing liquor licences in relation to each other.
- Gambling Licences: Gammon Coachhouse was issued a gambling licence which kicked off another round of city council “brinkmanship” regarding it. Our current approach to gambling will probably get another look in the near future.
- Downtown and Nearby Older Building Concerns: A growing source of frustration for local officials and residents has been discovering the sheer number of older downtown buildings suffering from severe structural or environmental issues. While there is a strong community desire to preserve historic structures, the practicalities and costs often prove too great, leading to the demolition of sites like the historic chimney, the former Tin Shop, and the long-vacant Hubbard building due to extreme decay and severe fire hazards. This recurring loss prompted the city to take broader action to figure out the true scope of these problems by issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to conduct a comprehensive audit of downtown building conditions, recently receiving 23 submittals from firms ready to evaluate the area’s aging infrastructure.
Author: Jim Fahrenbach
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