Joliet Legoland a Very Remote Possibility

By Margaret Lyons in News on Feb 27, 2008 5:20PM

"Legoland." Just feeling the word roll off your tongue should be enough to send you into shivers of delight. But news that some in Joliet are pushing for a Legoland that close to home? That is leaving us a quivering mess on the floor. Legoland! Right here in Illinois! Please, nerd overlords. Please.

Joliet City Councilman Anthony Uremovic is pushing for a Legoland to be built by the northwest corner of Interstates 55 and 80, but other Joliet politicians have balked at the amount of public money that would have to be spent on the project. Legoland developers want lots of tax incentives to subsidize the amusement center of delight and creativity, but Joliet's director of planning says Legoland would be "'an attraction more than a money generator,' because it would not produce tax revenues to offset the cost of incentives."

Nothing's a 100 percent done deal yet, though almost all signs are pointing to a big fat no for Joliet Legoland. We get it--that's not really the kind of thing tax money should go to. But we've been to the Legoland in California, and it is effing amazing. Interactive, interesting, and honest to goodness fun for the whole nerd family, plus you can buy all the weird, hard-to-find Lego shapes. And you can buy them by weight--think candy store with those big plastic bins and scoops, only instead of sugary confections, they're filled with Legos. Sigh. (Plus they have weird Lego jazz funerals.) [The Herald News, whose headline says "topples," not "topless," as we originally thought]

Image by Guillermo Ruiz de Loizaga