Downtown reels in SHINE Medical
Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Elliot Hughes
The highest offices in a downtown Janesville building soon will be occupied by at least 80 employees of SHINE Medical Technologies after the city council approved a tax increment financing deal Monday.
City officials believe SHINE’s move will bring—if only temporarily—the spending power of dozens of new workers to the area at a time when downtown revitalization has become a top priority in Janesville.
“This is a great thing for downtown,” council member Carol Tidwell said. “It will be a great boost for the economy here.”
SHINE, a medical radioisotope producer, soon will begin construction on a $100 million production facility on Janesville’s south side.
But downtown might not be its long-term headquarters. The company eventually plans to build a corporate office building on the production facility’s campus.
The TIF deal, however, will keep SHINE’s headquarters at 101 Prospect for at least five years. And those within City Hall and outside of it said the deal is a worthy investment to bring more people downtown.
“Maybe in five years they do move out to their corporate offices, but in the meantime, I think we need to expose people to the downtown,” said Dave Marshick of the Downtown Development Alliance. “It will support the private investment being made.”
The city’s master plan for reviving downtown, known as ARISE, will begin in earnest this winter with the demolition of the downtown parking plaza that straddles the Rock River. Meanwhile, private investment in several aging downtown properties has begun as well.
Gale Price, the city’s economic development director, said having SHINE downtown also could spark homebuyer interest in the area.
