The Morris City Council voted to accept a design proposal from Terra Engineering for its downtown streetscapes project, which has been made possible by an $800,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

The total project will cost around $2.4 million, with the City of Morris covering around $1.6 million of the cost. Terra Engineering’s job now is to meet with the public and the city to discuss what downtown will look like.

“We wanted to bring in a firm with some fresh ideas with what we’re doing with the rehab we’re going to do on Liberty Street,” said Mayor Chris Brown. “They’ll really look at all the aspects that Liberty Street is in desperate need of, whether it’s wifi, an irrigation system, maybe less lights or more lights. There’s so many things to be looked at.”

Brown said it’s been nearly 40 years since Liberty Street got any real updates, and there’s a chance to do something special.

Brown said there were eight different applications that went through a grading process based on experience and presentations.

“One of the things we’re really happy with this group on is they’ve had a lot of projects where they’ve done a lot of public engagement,” Brown said. “There’s going to be a lot of that associated with this, making sure we have public meetings, listen to what people like, don’t like, and want, and then go from there.”

Brown said the project could also be funded using tax-incremented finance (TIF) money, since Liberty Street is a TIF district.

TIF districts set aside property tax revenue created when property is improved and tax assessments go up, according to a July 2025 Herald-News story. The money that would otherwise go to local taxing bodies instead is used to incentivize economic development, so in this case, TIF money could be used as part of the city’s portion of the streetscapes project.

Brown said if everything goes accordingly, the city could be looking at a 2027 or 2028 date for the project.