Village officials have, for most of this young century, been pursuing the goal of making downtown Homewood an “18-hour” business district. The idea is to have sufficient population density and dining, business and entertainment options to entice people to spend more time — and money — there.

The replacement of the Triumph Building this year will contribute to the population density part of the equation.

The next step might be to create a new entertainment venue.

Village officials have been exploring the possibility of creating a performing arts center for several years. The current plan calls for renovating the auditorium in village hall, making it suitable to host arts events.

The auditorium currently is leased to the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District. Village Manager Jim Marino said the district has been notified that the village is exploring a new use for that space, but no formal notice regarding the lease has been sent so far.

A couple of years ago, the village commissioned a feasibility study to see what changes would be necessary to make the auditorium work as a performing arts venue.

“It’s another draw we want to create for downtown, to bring people to the community,” Marino said.

Marino said the feasibility study’s estimated costs were significant, but it gave officials a better idea of what would be required to create a professional quality facility.

He said the project would involve adding sound and lighting technology, improving acoustics, adding floor seating and probably replacing the bleacher seats.

The project will probably be done in phases, he said, as funding becomes available. It could take several years to complete.

The village’s grant writer has been assigned to begin looking for funding sources, and Mayor Richard Hofeld said he has been discussing the project with legislators to see what funding sources they could help with.

Hofeld said the response has been encouraging, but no specific funding has been committed yet.

The leaders of Homewood Arts Council have been involved in discussions about the project and are eager to see such a facility materialize. Co-founder Greg Loudon said such a venue would be a big help in the organization’s goal of making Homewood an arts destination.

We’ll check in periodically with the village and the arts council to keep track of progress on this project.

Watch for SIRC

Many of you probably know the multitalented Carole Sharwarko as a reporter, writer, consultant and social media manager who works for the Chronicle, the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District and other area clients.

You might not know that she is also a journalism entrepreneur.

She is the founder of the Southland Investigative Reporting Cooperative (SIRC), a non-profit organization that she is in the process of setting up. The basic model will be to find grant and foundation support for local investigative reporting. SIRC will hire reporters to dig into issues that matter to the residents of the South Suburbs and will publish their stories.

She is interested in getting story ideas from readers in order to investigate matters that are important to them.

“I want people to feel connected to this, to have a voice in what we cover,” she said.
The organization will also provide work for journalists in the area. The pattern for legacy news organizations is to shed staff rapidly as the industry adjusts to new economic realities. All that talent should not go to waste.

I predict SIRC is going to be important to our community.

The Chronicle was created to fill a gap left by newspapers that previously served H-F. But we are a general interest local paper, devoted to covering our community as broadly as possible.

SIRC will focus more on in-depth reporting throughout the area, honing in on specific situations and issues.

Reporter Supporter Club launched

Chronicle staff, volunteers and supporters had a great time on Saturday, Feb. 1, at the second annual Mayor’s Arctic Dip. Some of us, against our better judgment, jumped into a cold pool of water for the cause.

That’s probably not as shocking as the traditional arctic plunge, which involves jumping into icy lakes, as Mayor Richard Hofeld accidentally did in December 2017, but it’s close enough for most of us.

The event was all about gratitude. To celebrate the happy ending to the mayor’s adventure, the village created the event as an opportunity for the community to come together to support a worthy cause.

The Chronicle staff is grateful we were chosen as this year’s beneficiary, and we want thank Mayor Hofeld for the honor and we want to thank who attended and pitched in (or jumped in) to support our local newspaper.

On June 9, 2014, we had one reporter and one story. In December 2015 we launched our monthly print edition, thanks to community members pitching in to help us pay the printing bill for the first issue.

Today, we have professionals doing editing, reporting, design, photography and sales. We publish daily online and continue our monthly print edition so everyone has access to local news. A bigger staff means we can do more and cover our community better. It also means we need more money to support their work.

The Arctic Dip was the first step in our effort to launch a membership program that will provide the means for readers to support the reporters who bring them the news day in, day out. Anyone who wants to sign up and join the Reporter Support Club can do so on our website. This spring, we will launch a more fully developed membership program and will implement a paywall to help develop the resources we need to support our staff.

Stay tuned …