<p>Nicole Astra:<br />Welcome to Talking Cities Aurora, I'm Nicole Astra.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />And I'm Joey Thurman. The classic Bill Murray comedy, Groundhog Day, has turned into a musical and you can watch it unfold at the Paramount Theater.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Which we did, Friday night.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />We did. Yeah, you were my kind of date, I didn't sit by you.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />I had three dates, what are you going to do?<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />I feel terrible. She's just passed me off and then sits somewhere else, it's fine. What'd you think?<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Listen, I have seen a lot of shows, and this one's not my favorite, but I was very impressed that I immediately loved the music. When a brand new show and you have no reference for it, it's like, "Oh gosh, are you going to love it?" And I thought a lot of the songs were immediately catchy, very well done. So, did you have a favorite in the cast?<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />I did, and what's his name?<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Matthew?<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Matthew, yes. Matthew. There was this guy-<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />The dance captain.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />... The dance captain--<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />I don't know his last name.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />He's walking around and he's got this flag and he's moving his hips and he had really happy hips, and then I see him in the next scene and then he's a waiter. And then the next scene, there he is. He is wearing a leather jacket or something, he was entertaining. And I couldn't take my eyes off him.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Every second--<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />He was so entertaining.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />I mean every... down to his pinky and his expression, everything, I noticed it too.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />It was great. Happy hips.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yeah, I noticed it too.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Happy pinky. [crosstalk 00:01:17].<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Great cast. Great lead. Hopefully they'll come on and do some songs for us here in the studio.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Oh, that'd be fun.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yeah, absolutely fabulous. Hope you check it out as soon as possible.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />A Groundhog Day, the musical, runs through March 13th. Get your tickets at paramountaurora.com. And the Bold Series launches with "Sweat" inaugurating, the newly renovated Copley theater in downtown Aurora, March 9th through April 24th, 2022.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yes. More theater going on. Fox Valley Park District is producing a performance this Saturday "Local Legends: Stories from Aurora's African American Community." I got a sneak peek of the show last night, I talked to some teens. I'm standing there waiting for the camera guy and I love the community center because there's basketball, dance, karate. There's older folks. There's little ones. All going on at the same time.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />A bus pulls up, a bunch of teenagers hop out, turns out those were the kids we were about to meet and shout out to Mr. Bibbs, Waubonsie Valley High School. He was their chauffer.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Really?<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yeah, their assistant principal. He's even making sure the kids get this opportunity. He's driving them.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Wow.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />To do it.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Mr. Bibbs, nice job.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Mr. Bibbs.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />I love your name too, Mr. Bibbs.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Let's take a look.<br /><br />Speaker 3:<br />I'm a junior. I go to Avanti High School and I'm just overall super grateful for this opportunity to kind of amplify and give a voice to those black local legends that weren't heard before.<br /><br />Speaker 4:<br />I go to Waubonsie Valley High School. I'm a senior there. I play Richard Irving in Local Legends, and the role's been very fun and very interesting to play. I didn't expect to get the mayor himself to show up and all that. I didn't expect kind of this either, but it's really fun here.<br /><br />Speaker 4:<br />I've had a lot of fun, sometimes it's kind nervous up there, but you get over it the first couple times. And when the mayor came by, he was actually really excited to see my performance. He said he got goosebumps on my actual performance. So I'm very pleased to hear that.<br /><br />Speaker 5:<br />I am 18 years old. I attend Metea Valley High School. And by attending the Aurora Local Legends, I have learned a lot of things about one of my characters, Lillian Perry, who actually came in here to talk on behalf of her story and give us insight as to what happened that day. And I learned the importance of words, the power that history can bring and especially coming alive in front of our own eyes and knowing that there is power and change and that it's possible.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Jeriah Donaldson is joining us now in the studio. Welcome, please tell us about The Neighbor project.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Yes. Thank you for having me. The Neighbor Project, we are a local nonprofit, and we are a HUD approved agency. We've been around for about four years now. We were a combination of two nonprofits here, the Emmanuel House and Joseph Corporation. And we focus on personal wealth, whether that's purchasing a home or getting your credit or budgets together, or if you are a homeowner and you're trying to preserve your home, things like that. Those are issues that we tackle.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />And what about funding? And by all means, this is the time. If you need money, ask people from money.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Yes, we need money, tons of money. But yes, we are funded by HUD, and then we're also funded by NeighborWorks, which is a non-for-profit that Congress created to tackle these type of social issues and affordable housing and economic growth, things like that. And then we also get funding from the state of Illinois for some down payment assistance programs. We did a rental assistance program. There is a foreclosure mortgage assistance program coming out which will actually have financial assistance towards mortgage payments. And we have fundraisers going all the time on our website, The Neighbor Project, you'll find out about different events and you'll also find the PayPal button. So please feel free to use that.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Perfect.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Click the button. It's real easy.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />So do people come to you when they get in trouble or are they in an ongoing relationship with you for education?<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Yeah. Great question. Actually, we catch people at all walks of life. From the person who said, "My mom said, I need to get out of the basement. How do I own a home?" Or from the person who says, "I don't think I want to be a homeowner anymore. What are my options? What are things that I can do to where I'm not damaging my family, but making the best move for themselves?" So we really help you with that whole process. One of the things we always say is that we won't tell you what to do, but we really believe that information is the best way that you can make the best decision for you and your family.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />So really going over those steps, it's almost like having that bestie to just sit down with you and look at the plans, and then the decision, though, is all yours. So, a lot of times, some of these topics that we're talking about they can be very intimidating and very, very hard. And these are life things that we're talking about. We're talking about your financial future for your family and things. So it helps to have someone who's professional, who knows, and who understands what can happen and kind of walk those things out with you.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Definitely. And what do you have going on for Black History Month?<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Yeah, so for Black History Month, we have a financial workshop going on. It will start Saturday. It will be the next three Saturdays of the month. And if you attend all three sessions and post a picture of your certificate, you get a certificate for completing Money Management. And if you post it on your social media and tag us, you can get a free gift up to a hundred dollars towards something. Okay, not an actual hundred dollars let me make sure... but the gifts are really amazing. It's the next level of financial literacy or how to become a homeowner, those type of things and it will go towards those things that normally cost money, so.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Okay. So while you're here, we cover everything going down in the city. There's a lot of building development happening, housing.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Yes.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Being brought to the city. Let me get your take on that.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Yeah. So, I think Aurora is a great city. It has so many opportunities. You get so many things that you would get if you went to a big city, but we still have that suburban feel. Yeah. But the reality is, and being honest and even talking about Black History Month, the reality is that black families tend to be about 30, 40% below white families who own their homes, who have wealth. So there is a wealth gap in our community. And that's why this series is so important just to really address that. And The Neighbor Project is very dedicated to closing that wealth gap.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />We're hoping that even in the next year or so to have a grant that would be open for first time home buyers who are African American or black or of Caribbean descent to help them purchase their home. So those are some ways that you can help us as well, too, funding that initiative, but we take it very seriously. And we have the data, it's on our website as well, too, that talks about the history of affordable housing and different things like that. And we can see where the disparity is. And we can see that we do have a wealth gap in our beautiful community. And if one community is not striving or not thriving, then we all need to be concerned about it. So that's why this workshop is so important to us.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yeah, and education, that'll help close that gap. Thank you so much. The Neighbor Project.<br /><br />Jeriah Donaldson:<br />Thank you. Thank you, Curtis, for the...<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yeah. Shout out to Curtis and Good Morning, Aurora for connecting us to The Neighbor Project. Excellent. There are two vacant schools, Mary Todd and Lincoln that are both under contract, I suspect, for residential housing as well. So there's a lot going on in the city.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />There's a lot of development. And over the summer I spoke with David Dibo, who was ahead of all of this, and there's a $70 million construction project going on. It's the largest of its kind. It's going to have all sorts of different things and you may want to move there. So here's a little clip.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Now this may look like a parking lot to some people, but David Dibo, this is not just a parking lot, right?<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />Nope, and it won't look like this for long.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />What's your title with the city?<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />I'm the director of economic development and mayor's office of economic development.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Okay. So you're responsible for just building everything up, right.<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />Just helping the mayor and the wonderful staff we have in Aurora to make things happen, to take this city with incredible potential and to help execute and help realize the potential. This parking lot, I think, being indicative of it.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Okay. It's a lot of space, a lot of potential. So what is going to be here?<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />It's going to be an apartment building with 246 units, a mix of studios, one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom apartments, parking, and just would be the largest project in Aurora that we've ever seen.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Really, and what's the overall budget.<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />The overall budget's about 70 million. When I say largest, largest for a residential project, we did do another one that was a commercial project, that was a bit larger.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />$70 million. And is there any incentives for the developer coming in?<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />We are giving the developer some incentives, which roughly equates to, as I'm thinking about it, 8 or 9% of the total budget, maybe closer to 10% of the total $70 million budget. And we base that on the economics of the project. So what we do in our department is really get to understand what it is that the developer needs to make this project happen. So for instance, in a market that's functioning in a pure capitalistic way, you wouldn't need a city to come in and provide any incentive, but in this case, the rents, while they're growing, they're not at a number to justify the economics. So we provide an incentive to help kick it over the top.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Okay. And besides the apartment, is there any amenities that are going to be with the building?<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />Definitely. There's going to be a lot of common area. There's going to be a dog walking area and guest parking, swimming pool, just a full service building.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Okay. And putting a building of this size and magnitude and obviously budget here, what do you hope for the rest of Aurora coming in? Do you think that more businesses are going to be able to come downtown Aurora because there's more people living here?<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />No question. As any economic ecosystem, a lot of different things happen. So if you look at this site, we're sitting on a river here and this is really one of the most beautiful sites that you could see. A lot of this is going to be trimmed down. You'll be able to look over at the beautiful bridge, which connects the east side of Aurora, which we're on now, to the west side.<br /><br />David Dibo:<br />It certainly will induce more demand for grocery stores and different services, and so on. It's part of a much larger picture within the city. So it sounds incredible here, but if you look across the river, the city owns nine acres of land, right on the other side where the bridge is, there's all sorts of plans being talked out over there. So really this should be part of a bigger picture. So it's like anything where you get excited about, if you were building a company, you'd be excited about, let's say, you got two stores, but then you might want four stores, so this is really part of a much larger picture... not only of this part of and the downtown, but the surrounding areas over here on the east side, on the west side, and then the larger picture of what is Aurora.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />I'm really excited to see when that project starts and breaks ground because it's going to be quite a tremendous facility.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />You know what I'm excited about?<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Huh?<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />What's Thursday, Joey?<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />It's just Thursday, February 10th.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />What's February 10th?<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Nothing exciting at all.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />It says birthday.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Yeah, it's my birthday.<br /><br />Staff:<br />Happy birthday, to you.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Aww...<br /><br />Staff:<br />Happy birthday to you.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />It's a little bit like the "It" clown.<br /><br />Staff:<br />Happy birthday, Dear Joey. Happy birthday to you.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />All right. Send us some social media love for this guy's birthday.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />Thank you. That was a beautiful rendition. I'm going to remember it in my nightmares. I'm Joey Thurman. I know I'm 39, I look fabulous in case you're wondering, I'm very humble. What's your name?<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />What's your name? I am Joey's guest, Nicole Astra for the day. Wishing him a glorious birthday, one more year until you're in my decade.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />One more year. Okay.<br /><br />Nicole Astra:<br />Yeah. That's it for now.<br /><br />Joey Thurman:<br />40 and fabulous, see ya.</p>