The Center for Prevention of Abuse is looking to build a new emergency domestic violence shelter in Pekin.
In a 6-1 vote Monday night, the Pekin City Council approved a land purchase agreement for a 1.8-acre property at 121 S. 2nd St. The acquisition will enable CFPA to rebuild and expand its Pekin operations.
“We're often at capacity at the Center for Prevention of Abuse, and have been for quite a while,” said CEO Carol Merna. “Providing safety and comfort and convenience of location is very important whenever we have guests that stay with us at our emergency shelters, or when somebody comes for therapy or counseling. We just want to make sure that they have everything that they need to accommodate their search for peace.”
Merna said the CFPA’s current Carol House of Hope shelter in Pekin has been in operation in an undisclosed location since 1998.
“We've been able to serve up to 16 women and children at that location, and it was donated to us; it used to be a medical practice and an old house,” she said. “This new location is going to allow us to provide additional space so we can serve more people. We’ll be able to serve everyone – women, men and children – like we do at our Peoria facility.”
Merna said the new facility will allow them to provide on-site therapy and early childhood care services. She says they’re facing a growing need to assist domestic abuse in the area.
“A really good number of our domestic violence clients come from Tazewell County – 30%. So we want to make sure that we are easily accessible and that we're serving all of Central Illinois, which is our service area,” Merna said.
Merna said the conversation surrounding a new Pekin facility started about four years ago, but gained momentum recently with help from Mayor Mary Burress and City Manager John Dossey.
“Frankly, the pandemic got in the way for a good piece of the time, but the city of Pekin has been really accommodating in conducting business like I would expect them to conduct for good economic development,” Merna said.
The redevelopment agreement with Pekin also provides some reimbursement incentives for the project. Merna says they already have some money set aside and they will probably sell the current location and put the proceeds toward the new building. But they will also seek additional sponsor and community support.
“We're not a big fan of going into debt, so we don't – unless it's absolutely necessary,” she said. “But we'll have costs like sponsoring the guest room and the furniture that will go in, and the kitchen and the kitchen equipment and the living room. So we'll look to our partners, like in Peoria when the Peoria facility was built, CEFCU and Caterpillar and Ameren and some others sponsored the client rooms or the guestrooms in the shelter. So we hope to be able to do that again.
“We want to have a peace garden where people can go outside and really enjoy the surroundings; we'll look for people to help us with that. So we are prepared with a good, basic cost that will get us started. The city of Pekin has chipped in a little bit of money toward the architecture through their TIF grant, and I know we'll have outstanding community partnerships that will step up and make sure that we finish the project in grand style.”
Merna said the project is still in the very early stages.
“We wanted to have site control before we went too much further,” she said. “So the next process is to further the drawings of the facility; we did some preliminary drawings a few years ago, but we'll now go to the hard drawings to make sure it's exactly what we hope it will be. Then we'll have a contractor on board with that architect. We hope to be open – we’ll break ground this spring or this summer, and then we hope to be open by next year at the latest.”
