EDINBURG – The Village of Edinburg heard a proposal from Sloan Implement during its regular meeting on Monday, February 12, 2023.
For residents who were upset with the decision of Dollar General to withdraw their current store plans from Edinburg for the time being, there is good news. Sloan Implement has expressed great interest in purchasing property and bringing a new store to the village.
According to Mayor David Luttrell, Sloan is looking at around 30 acres of land in the southwestern part of the village, sitting in the area between Wildcat Way and Illinois Route 29. The deal to purchase land is supposed to close in March.
Rod Caris, Korey Bailey, and Luke Stanaford were present at the meeting, all representing Sloan. The men shared that the plan was to make a store of roughly 30,000 square feet that would have sales, do maintenance work, and also sell parts.
“What happened is the Taylorville store needs to expand but there is no land there. He’s landlocked,” Bailey explained, “We’ve gotten a lot of business out this way, up towards Mechanicsburg and such, and it’s only a few miles away from Taylorville.”
Plus, the location next to Route 29 was appealing from a business standpoint. The group admitted that the company was also working with the county on a “Plan B” option, but they stressed that the Edinburg project was what they truly wanted. Due to this, they were eager to begin the project.
Rod admitted that Tom Sloan, the company chairman, wanted construction to start and finish within a year. While that would be ideal for everyone involved, the board was also aware plans rarely run that smoothly. However, everyone present seemed aware that the new business would be good for the village.
“We do have sales tax for the village,” Caris said, “As you know, Ag sales are not taxable. But with our lawn and garden sales, lawn mowers, some parts, we bring in roughly two million a year in sales taxes.”
They also mentioned the potential jobs the new store could bring to the village.
Village attorney Rocci Romano told the board that as the land currently stands, the new property for Sloan would not be part of the village yet as it was not contiguous. There was one property owner between the new store area and the village. Romano said they would need to make an annexation agreement with the property owner before they could annex the new Sloan property in.
Sloan said they wanted to be part of the village, as they were interested in village utility services.
Romano recommended the village or the people from Sloan reach out to the property owner to get the ball rolling on the annexation agreement. Once the property owner was on board, Romano said getting the Sloan property into the village would be a rather brisk process. There were some legal questions he would need answered, though.
“You need to decide between the two of you, between Sloan and the Village, who is going to pay for the sewer, water, and gas,” Romano said, “I have no idea what it would cost to run those services out there, but you need to know what the breakeven point would be for the Village to get those services out there.”
Superintendent Mike Lebshier threw out some rough ballpark figures but didn’t have solid numbers yet. It was an estimated of about $325,000 for gas, water, and sewer lines, but Lebshier said he would have to talk to the engineer for more solid details. The Sloan representatives said they needed to return to Tom Sloan to talk about the cost of services and what the tax revenues would be for the village and come back with more details and see where the plan could go.
The board and Sloan hoped to have more information ready for the special meeting on February 26. The board also plans to use the special meeting to discuss whether or not to go ahead with the raw water project. Until then, the board decided to table any motions on the payment of the engineering firm until they had time to ask questions to engineer Ben Spreen about why the cost of his services had increased.
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Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.
