Tourism

 Carbondale gets a lot of tourists. Not tourists coming to see the city but rather to see things around the city. Carbondale is fortunate to have SIUC, SIH and to be located on the edge of the Shawnee National Forest. People come to Carbondale primarily for these reasons and use the city as a home base, for want of a better word. Carbondale needs to do a better job of promoting the support services in town, specifically the restaurants and other entretainment venues that these visitors can visit during their downtime from whatever brought them to the city.

Marketing Study

 the city is going to be conducting a marketing study later this year. It would certainly be cost effective and a show of confidence in SIUC, if the city would engage the Marketing Research class at SIUC to conduct the research. That class has done research for both Quatro's and Carbondale Main Street. since we have such a resource, it would make sense to make use of it.

SauSea's

 According to their social media, SauSea's Restaurant on south Illinois will reopen on May 20th.  Apparently the restaurant is connected with the Paducah Fish Market, meaning they have a consistant source of fresh fish for the menu.  Hopefully the restaurant lasts longer this time than last and I also hop they put up a sign on Illinois Avenue indicating there is parking behind the building. If you do not know it is there, that parking is easy to miss.

South Grand

 Looks like the city has restriped South Grand.  After resurfacing the street last month and their restriping it for that it had four lanes, now the ciy has restriped it so that there are 2 main lanes, 1 center turn lane and bike lanes on either side of the street, as the proposed plan anounced in 2024 called for.

Good. South Grand did not neeed to be a four lane street and this new sriping should slow down traffic and make bicycling safer along the street.  Maybe eventually, the cty will put curbs or poles up to further protest cyclists.

Homeless Center

 The city will be getting $2 million to apply to the Homeless Shelter Facility Rehab Project.  I assume this will go towards the property on West Mill the city is negotiating to receive from NeroRestorative as, from what I have heard, it would cost far more than that ro rehab the East College facility.

The City of Carbondale will soon receive $2 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the City’s Homeless Center Facility Rehab project. 

Earlier this year, Senator Duckworth, on behalf of the City of Carbondale, submitted a Congressional Directed Spending request for the City’s Homeless Center Facility Rehab project for $2 million that was included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act.  

H.R. 7148, Consolidated Appropriations Act, was signed into law on February 3rd, 2026. 

The funding for the Homeless Center Facility Rehab Project will be used for the shelter improvement initiative that will provide updated amenities and accessibility.  

Tedrick Welcome Center

 I got the opportunity to attend the open house this past weekend for the new Tedrick Welcome Center on the SIUC campus and  I must say it presents a much more agreeable "face" to the university than did the now demolished McAndrew's Standium or the large parking lot that was there. Still, did the university need that much addtional meeting space? By my estimation there are three floors of rooms there, much of which I will bet are either going to be used for meeting rooms or offices.  It would be nice to see some funds directed to repairs of other buildings on campus, though reparis are not nearly as flashy as new buildings are.

America at 250

SIUC,  in conjunction with the city, has launded a website listing local events tied into the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.   If you know of an event, you can submit it on the website.

Maybe it is just age but I remember the celebration of the 200th anniversary back in 1976 as getting a lot moe attention. There was the parade of the tall ships into New York Harbor as well as hundreds of other events throughout the year focusing on the nation's history. I have not heard about anything of that magnitude for this year's celebrations, though New York city will host another Parade of Tall Ships on July 4th