PHOTO BY DEAN OLSEN
Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory, left, shown here conferring with Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams Jr. at the Feb. 18 City Council meeting, thanked local labor leaders, Mayor Misty Buscher and Nehemiah Expansion officials for “sitting down and working through a tough process” on negotiations to support an $18 million project that would create 50 new rental homes on the city’s east side for low-income residents.
Springfield City Council members on Feb. 18 approved $1.5 million in city funding for a 50-home addition to the Nehemiah Expansion affordable-housing project on the east side.
The two 10-0 votes – to spend $1 million in federal HOME grant funds and $500,000 in property tax revenues from the Far East Tax-Increment Financing District – pave the way for the church-based nonprofit overseeing Nehemiah to request bids from contractors for the project’s proposed fifth phase.
Officials from Windsor Homes, Nehemiah’s general contractor, had been concerned that a city-mandated “project labor agreement” would increase construction costs for the proposed $18 million project to the point that financing would be disrupted and the project wouldn’t move forward.
PLAs, which allow unions to set wage and other terms and conditions of employment for workers, began to be required under a 2023 city ordinance for all projects involving more than $50,000 in city funds.
Windsor Homes owner Mike Niehaus and the Rev. Silas Johnson, pastor of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, who operates Nehemiah as an arm of the church, initially said they hoped the City Council would agree to limit the PLA to cover only a portion of this project so any potential cost increases could be minimized.
But Johnson and Niehaus have put that request on hold for now after a private meeting on Feb. 17 that included Johnson, Niehaus, Mayor Misty Buscher, Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory and officials from local building trades unions.
Niehaus said Windsor agreed to solicit bids from contractors and then determine whether the proposals would, in fact, interfere with the complicated mix of private and public financing needed to make the project work. If the bids come in too high over the next few weeks, Niehaus said Nehemiah and Windsor officials will ask city officials to limit the scope of the PLA to reduce costs.
If city officials don’t agree, the project – which still requires approval from the Illinois Housing Development Authority – may not take place as planned, Niehaus said.
As it stands now, the PLA would require 50% of workers on the project to come from Springfield and 30% of the workers to represent minorities.
Niehaus said the recent meeting was “very congenial.”
“Hopefully, it’s a very positive move forward,” he said. “The mayor is very sincere in her desire to get poor people more and better jobs.”
Construction on the fifth phase could begin in spring 2026. More than 350 low-income people are on the waiting list to rent, and eventually purchase, one of the 50 new two-, three- and four-bedroom homes in the new phase, Johnson said.
A total of 120 homes have been completed and occupied in earlier phases of Nehemiah Expansion on the east side since 2008, Niehaus said.
Those 120 homes, currently owned by Nehemiah and exempt from property taxes until they are purchased, still generate a total of about $80,000 per year for Springfield School District 186, city government and other taxing bodies in Sangamon County. Nehemiah sends that amount to the city as “payment in lieu of taxes.” Niehaus said.
In the fifth phase, 76 lots would be improved, with 41 of the lots currently owned by the city and 35 acquired by Nehemiah over the years. Eleven blighted buildings would be torn down if the project proceeds.