Joliet mayor: 2026 to be a big year for city with more room to grow

Joliet will celebrate its past in 2026 and prepare for a future population as big as 400,000, Mayor Terry D’Arcy said.

D’Arcy commented on the city’s past and future during a speech to the Rotary Club of Joliet on Tuesday.

The year 2026 is big for Joliet because it is the 100th anniversary for historic Route 66, and D’Arcy said he believes Joliet, which lies along the route, will be a big part of the celebration.

D’Arcy, who grew up in Plainfield, referred to his long family roots in Joliet and childhood experiences in the city’s downtown.

“My grandmother and I used to walk downtown when I was a kid, and it was unbelievable how energetic it was,” he said. “We’re going to bring that back.”

Specifically, the city is building a city square downtown that D’Arcy expects to be an attraction for local residents and travelers who come through town on historic Route 66 during the the highway’s 100th Anniversary year in 2026.

“When completed, we expect this transformation to be nothing more than spectacular,” D’Arcy said.

D’Arcy’s presentation to the Rotarians was made at the request of the organization. It was not intended, as some have said, to be a state-of-the-city address.

“We’re going to do that in May,” D’Arcy said after his presentation, adding that arrangements are still being made for a state-of-the-city speech, which would be his first since D’Arcy became mayor in 2023.

During his presentation to the Rotarians, D’Arcy repeated a forecast he has been making in other venues that the city population at some point could reach 400,000.

“Our goal is to ensure that Joliet can support a population of up to 400,000 residents,” D’Arcy said.

The city population now is 150,489, making it the third largest city in Illinois and slightly ahead of Naperville. Joliet’s potential access to unincorporated land, compared to other large cities that are basically landlocked, gives it the capacity to someday become the second-largest city in the state, a position now held by Aurora.

“I don’t think we’ll be at 400,000 right away,” D’Arcy said. “But I think we have to keep that in the back of our minds.”

D’Arcy also brought up the 400,000 population possibility at a recent meeting of a citizens' committee creating a comprehensive plan for Joliet.

The comprehensive plan was another topic in the presentation to the Rotarians.

“We want this plan to reflect the needs of everyone in Joliet,” D’Arcy said.

The plan, which would be the first comprehensive plan for Joliet since the 1950s, would be created for current and future residents of the city.

He repeated a statistic often mentioned during his 2023 campaign for mayor that roughly 30% of Joliet is 18 years old or younger.

“This project is to help us draw their future,” D’Arcy said.

D’Arcy covered numerous other topics in the speech, saying:

• An Equitable Transit Oriented Development plan being developed with Metra around the Gateway Transportation Center could lead to more residential development downtown.

• $500,000 in Choice Neighborhood federal grants for city planning around the River Walk Homes, formerly Evergreen Terrace, low-income housing development could lead to future funding for housing improvements in the area.

• Crime statistics show that violent crime has been declining since 2021, although property crimes are on the rise, a situation that D’Arcy said “we are facing not only locally but nationally.”