Du Quoin receives $4M grant to help with economic development

DU QUOIN, Ill. (KFVS) - More jobs will be available in Du Quoin in the next few years.

This comes after national leaders awarded a $4 million grant to the city.

”We need it pretty badly to spur economic development,” said Du Quoin Mayor Guy Alongi.

The city plans to build a 500,000-gallon water tower in industrial park with the Cares Act Recovery Assistance grant.

“It will benefit everybody in town because we’re adding 500,000 gallons to a storage, but we’re also adding the capacity of supplying water to the industrial park so that’s the big plus for it,” Alongi said.

Alongi said the new tower will create about 20 construction jobs and the U.S. economic development administration expects it to create 121.

He said it took several years to get the grant.

“I understand it started in 2008,” he said.

With the help from Greater Egypt regional planning and development commission, the city got it.

Economic Development Director, Jennifer Olson said out of all the five southern Illinois counties they serve, this is the biggest EDA grant received.

“I’m just super excited for the City of Du Quoin, they have been super patient. It has been a slow and steady wins the race sort of thing,” Olson said.

“We’ll still have our 300,000-gallon water tower in downtown Du Quoin and then we have a million-gallon storage underground just north of town, so in between the three we’ll have about 1.8 million gallons of potable water, so that’s huge for a small town our size,” Alongi said.

Mayor Alongi said the whole project from design to completion should take about 2.5 years.

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