Shiloh sees health-care progress and other opportunities ahead

By DENNIS GRUBAUGH
    By anyone’s estimates, Shiloh had the kind of year like you read about — story after story on positive developments. The coming year looks like more of the same.
    A new, $25 million Medical Office Building was opened on the Memorial East Hospital campus in October. Approval for a second building, this one intended as a Siteman Cancer Center, is being sought from the state by Memorial, BJC Healthcare and others.
    Village Administrator John Marquart said many things transpired in 2017 that should come to fruition in ’18.
    Economic incentives are being laid to lure the Auffenberg group’s auto mall from Interstate 64 in O’Fallon to highway frontage in Shiloh, a couple of miles away. If everything works out, ground will be broken late in 2018 on 36 acres of land being sold by BJC and developer Darwin Miles, Marquart said.
    The site is immediately east of Holiday Inn Express and would occupy the frontage land between I-64 and Frank Scott Parkway.
    “Ultimately, they will have nine dealerships,” Marquart said. “We’ve been talking to them for at least a couple of years now. We’re not anticipating any stumbling blocks.”
    To the east of there, on 26 acres, Shiloh has approved a housing development called The Savannah, which will be 311 units of multifamily housing at the intersection of Tamarack Lane and Cross Street. Dirt should move in 2018.
    On the west end of town, the Hartman Lakes development has been authorized at Hartman Lane and Thouvenot Lane. It will be 330 units of multifamily housing. The first phase is about 18 acres with 200 units. The developer is Darrell Shelton.
    Also in the works is The Summit of Shiloh, 300-plus units of housing south of and abutting Tamarack Golf Course. Drivers needing to get quickly from Lebanon Avenue to Frank Scott Parkway will be able to use a planned road that will be built alongside the subdivision.
    Getting people off roads and onto safer settings has been a theme, too.
    Around Three Springs Park, Shiloh has opened a 1.6-mile, 10-foot-wide, multiuse trail around a lake. Metro East Park and Recreation District assisted in the funding.
    Illinois Department of Transportation opened bids in mid-November on Phase 1 of a Scott AFB/Seibert Road multiuse path that will extend to Johnson Road. Shiloh is now considering bids on a northern leg of that path.
    “Basically, there is going to be a hard surface trail from the Village Hall all the way down to Johnson Road that will allow bikers and walkers to avoid getting on Seibert Road. The trail will all be on the west side of Seibert,” Marquart said.
    Shiloh has also applied to the Illinois Department of Transportation for funding to extend a multiuse path down Shiloh Station Road to connect to a pathway that goes along railroad tracks on the south end of town. It would extend to the Metro Link Station along Illinois Route 158.
    The village also just completed the final leg of a Safe Routes to School sidewalk improvement at Sierra Park and Wayside School.
    South of the Holiday Inn Express, on Fortune Boulevard, a 13,000-square-foot Veterans Affairs medical facility is going up.
    A comprehensive plan, the first in eight years, is also in the works, he said.