Harbor House has started ground‑level work on its larger redevelopment, ECDA staff told Kankakee City’s Community Development Committee on Dec. 1, but the city’s $2 million portion of the project has not yet gone to bid.

ECDA executive director Barbara Brewer Watson said state reviewers returned the bid documents with edits during the holidays and that Davis‑Bacon Act and Section 3 requirements impose mandatory notice and posting timelines before bidding and additional payroll and hiring reporting during construction. "Because this is Davis Bacon Act in section 3, there's a mandatory ... notice for the state to lock in the wage requirement for this project before the bid can actually go out, and then the bid...has to be out for 4 weeks, 30 days," she said, estimating the city's portion would likely not proceed until February.

Staff described significant unanticipated administration time required for compliance (payroll reports, Davis‑Bacon forms, marketing and hiring‑effort documentation). ECDA elected not to budget administrative fees from the grant and instead allocated more of the award to construction costs; staff said that choice increases internal staff time without a direct reimbursement mechanism. "This is a lot of heavy administration work," Brewer Watson said, noting that the department has already spent substantial staff hours in meetings with the state and in preparing complex bid documents.

Committee members acknowledged the value of the Harbor House project while expressing concern about the administrative burden on ECDA. Staff said they will continue to process required paperwork, work with state grant representatives and bring schedule updates to the committee as the state and bid timeline permit.