Sportsplex Proposal Nears Bond Decision

McHenry County's Finance and Audit Committee reported this week developers of a proposed Route 47 sports complex have secured a special designation for McHenry County that would allow them to sell chunks of the project to foreign investors in $500,000 bits instead of $1 million bites.

Chairman Marc Munaretto said the county is now a Targeted Employment Area for purposes of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services EB-5 resident visa program. That's the plan which McHenry County Sportsplex intends to use to pay off $18 million in stimulus bonds if the County will issue them.

Munaretto said the County has an assurance from investment banker Stern Brothers that it will underwrite the bonds and now the committee is merely waiting for the Sportsplex company to say  precisely where the complex would be built.

Sportsplex CEO Lou Tenore told FEN last week the company had purchase options on several pieces of property in the vicinity of Route 47 and Route 120 but a search revealed none on file at the County Recorder's Office.  Recording an option isn't required by law, however.

Tenore said the company hadn't been able to come to terms on one piece of property rumored to be part of the project but said it didn't really need it.  "It would have been nice for future expansion," Tenore said.