The city of Pekin is looking at potential downtown parking improvements along Court Street, where more than 30 properties are either vacant or for sale.
Council member John Abel thinks improving parking could make those vacant properties more attractive for development.
"There are buildings downtown being shown by Realtors, but the big hesitation is parking," Abel said. "And it's something I think is very important. It's something that needs to be addressed if we're going to try and whittle that number of 30-something buildings empty down and get some occupied."
Pekin Main Street commissioned an engineering study on the viability of several options, including allowing diagonal parking along the 200 block of Court Street, restriping crosswalks, and converting an alley running along the north side of Court Street to a pedestrian walkway.
Mayor Mark Luft said the city also has another downtown problem to tackle.
"We have two issues: those that are unoccupied with nobody addressing it, and those that are unoccupied that we have the potential to get somebody in," Luft said. "It's the other ones that we need to take a look at and make a decision if we want to allow buildings on Court Street to continue to be storage units. Basically, that's what they are. That's not good, either."
Luft said those building owners often live out of state.
City Manager Mark Rothert said the anticipated costs for the combined projects won't be cheap — about $1 million of funding will be available for public infrastructure projects next year.
But the existing plans hit a snag when the city was unable to acquire a property along Margaret Street. Rothert said they'll work around that issue and revisit the plans in the coming weeks.
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