With good weather and a bit of luck, Peoria County should be cutting the ribbon on its new Health and Human Services campus by this time next year.
That's according to Rob Reneau. He's the chairperson for the Peoria County Board's health committee.
"The iron workers have been working on getting the iron work up. And that's really is what has kind of given people a sense of the scope and scale of this building, and kind of the shape of it," Reneau said. "So that's been kind of the really exciting part for us, is actually seen what it going to look like."
He noted many people have noticed the elevator shaft peeking up over the construction barriers around the site.
Officials had planned a "topping out" ceremony on Monday to lift the last structural beam into place. That ultimately didn't happen due to high winds, but there was still a beam signing and a brief gathering to mark the progress on the new building.
The HHS campus will sit on the former site of the Peoria City/County Health Department on Sheridan Road in central Peoria. When completed, the new campus will house not only the health department, but also the coroner's office, Regional Office of Education, and the county's Sustainability and Resource Conservation Department.
Construction began in September. Reneau said there's been a couple setbacks, but nothing major. He noted that the $18.7 million construction project is already fully funded.
"This is a building that's going to be owned outright by the residents of Peoria County. We didn't have to take any bond debt. We didn't have to raise any taxes. We paid cash for this facility," he said.
Discussions around a new health department building first began in earnest back in 2021. The county board ultimately opted to construct a new multi-use campus on the site of the former health department.
