Cracked windows speckled with dirt and dust particles are the norm on the former Chanute Air Force Base’s White Hall. A milky white substance leaches from faded-red bricks and mixes with rust caked on the walls. Inside, leaky roofs have caused ceilings to collapse, basements to flood and paint to peel. In some rooms, stalactites have formed.

Hard to believe the building was once commonly known as Buckingham Palace.

“It’s in very bad condition. It’s literally turning into a white hall,” said David Chestnut, vice president of Busey Bank and a member of the newly formed Chanute Redevelopment Commission.

After the Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Ill., officially closed in 1993, many of the buildings on the property have limited use and face deteriorating conditions, like those of the 400,000-square-foot White Hall. The closure was part of military cost cutting in 1988, when multiple training bases like Chanute were shut down.

Property left behind from base closures in well-developed metropolitan areas was in high demand and redeveloped fairly easily, said Hal Loebach, executive director of the Chanute Air Museum.

This was not the case for Chanute.

The closure of the base has left Rantoul without a major economic engine for more than 13 years. And new businesses continue to shy away because of environmental problems and renovation costs associated with many of the buildings.

Yet redevelopment is exactly what Rantoul needs, said J. Fred Giertz, an economics professor at the University of Illinois.

“The base is very important for Rantoul and to a certain extent Champaign County,” Giertz said. “That’s one of the reasons the county didn’t grow much for some time. Even though the (University of Illinois) was doing reasonably well, it was offset by the decline of Rantoul and Chanute activity.”

Initially, the base closing cut 6,000 jobs and caused the loss of nearly $180 million to the East Central Illinois economy per year – a significant blow, said David Johnston, Rantoul village administrator. Departing soldiers left housing units vacant, creating high supply but little demand at current prices.

“The town has changed economically, demographically and ethnically,” Johnston said.

Other former bases, such as Glenview Naval Station, in Glenview, Ill., and Fort Sheridan, in Chicago, have had quicker success with redevelopment, Johnston said.

“These base closures created a significant hole in an already-developed area,” he said. “Developers start salivating when they see that. These areas have their own market forces that tell developers to go in and take the environmental risk.”

But for Rantoul, developers are “often on the fence about whether to locate here,” Johnston said, so the land must be “clean and shovel-ready.”

To make the buildings viable for growth, investment is needed to either demolish or refurbish them, Johnston said. Prime candidates for demolition include an old steam plant, jet-engine test cells and dormitories. White Hall, too, is a candidate but is privately owned.

“The land is valuable; the buildings are keeping businesses away from here,” Johnston said. “The value is not in the buildings, and we need to demolish many of them.”

Demolition does not come cheap, especially considering that the buildings must be up to Environmental Protection Agency standards beforehand. Removal of asbestos and lead-based paint – present in many buildings – drives demolition costs up to an estimated $160 million, said Rantoul Mayor Neal Williams.

That’s where the Chanute Redevelopment Commission comes in. Last summer, Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a bill to create the independent commission to work with the village to get and spend money for demolition, cleanup and rehabilitation work on the former base.

The commission is the result of lobbying efforts by a group of community businesspeople led by Chestnut. Currently, it is looking to secure state and federal funding to supplement village resources.

In the works is a foreign-trade zone, letting businesses to import products tax-free. The village is also in talks to create a HUBzone covering the former base, meaning that if a business chooses to locate on base property, it will get preferential treatment from contractors as opposed to a business located elsewhere, Johnston said.

Currently, about 500 acres on the northeast corner of Chandler and Century Roads, dubbed the “800 Area” by the military, are ready for new development.

Bell Helmets, Lincoln’s Challenge Academy, Collins & Aikman, Lason Systems and the University of Illinois Advanced Transportation Research and Engineering Laboratory all occupy buildings on the former base today.

“We hope that’s a market indicator to developers that they can come in and build something,” he said.

The volume and pace of the 30,000 people on the base years ago will never be matched, Chestnut said. But Williams said he expects the base to be an economic force once again in the future.

“We think we can make a stronger economic impact with the base today than it was even in its glory days,” Williams said.