Chris Aiston has high hopes for St. Charles’ economy.
The city’s newly appointed economic development director, lured away from Kane County and formerly employed by the city of Geneva, said he’s always thought of St. Charles as a top notch city.
“I think St. Charles already has existing infrastructure, social as well as business, that still make it a draw” Aiston said. “I think it’s well positioned to grow again when the economy turns.”
The Republican spoke with Aiston during his first week on the job to get his economic assessment of the city.
Q Why did you decide to leave Kane County for St. Charles?
A You know, the opportunity kind of came about (with) relative good timing. It’s back in my wheel house, so to speak. What I’ve done the majority of my career is worked with municipalities doing economic development, and that’s very much at the hands-on level. ... The job in Kane, I enjoyed it, it was a good opportunity, but it was more policy and regional focused. ... I wasn’t involved with (bringing projects into fruition) and I missed that.
Q What’s your initial plan for St. Charles?
A My plan is the community’s plan, but I look forward to and I’m going to actively be going on three projects specifically; the First Street redevelopment, obviously. I’ll be looking at the St. Charles Towne Center property out by Randall Road and Route 38 and moving that along to a development approval and looking at long term plans, whether they be maintaining status quo or all the way to wholesale redevelopment ... as it relates to Charlestowne Mall.
Q What’s the big picture over the next few years? Will the economy improve?
A Yeah, I think this has already been a fairly long, drawn out and deep recession, no doubt. I’m not the only person in economics to say that, but I think a couple things are still a little discouraging. I think it will be slow unemployment growth nationally, statewide and in the metropolitan area of Chicago. People are still concerned about jobs, and that affects consumer confidence. Many in our community in the Fox Valley have a high (interest) in retail sales. You can’t escape that, but I think it’ll come around. ... The investment dollar always precedes employment growth, and I expect that we’re going to see some recovery in 2010. I’m not going to be so presumptuous to think I’m smarter than any other person in redevelopment to know when that’s going to happen, though. There’s no magic wand.
