The Riverview Plaza tower in Downtown Peoria has been shuttered for more than two years, as the city pushes building owner MJ Illinois to fix the fire suppression, sprinkler and electrical systems.
Recently, city officials were dismayed to discover people living in the tower. At a court hearing over fines for code violations, City of Peoria building safety manager Rich Storm testified that he saw beds, a new shower, a gym and laundry services inside the tower.
“We were troubled by the finding that there were people that were living in the building and occupying space in the building when it is not safe, and it’s been posted as that,” Peoria City Manager Patrick Urich said in his latest regular interview with WCBU.
Urich said the city is doing everything within its power to force MJ Illinois to bring the building into code compliance.
“For us, that means pursuing the fines in court that we have to for his noncompliance,” said Urich. “I don’t think that it’s unreasonable for the city to expect that the building be put together in a way that is safe.”
Urich said the city continues to monitor the situation, and that staff may reach out to the bank holding the mortgage on the property in an effort to force the owner to make the needed repairs.
“If he wants to mothball that building until he has some development plans that are going forward, that’s fine,” said Urich. “It just needs to be safe for the public safety officials, our fire department and our police department that may have to enter the building if something were to go wrong. We haven’t seen progress, and that’s frustrating to us.”
Tower on Adams
Elsewhere Downtown, Urich said a development agreement for the city-owned Tower on Adams, commonly called the PNC Bank Building, could come before the Peoria City Council in late July or early August.
“We are continuing to discuss with our interested developer a proposal that he’s given us that would look at probably two redevelopment agreements on the property: one that would cover the PNC Bank Building, and the second that would cover the future of the parking structure and the Creve Coeur Club building,” said Urich, adding the plans for the tower would feature 160 residential units.
Urich said the city is actively operating in tandem with the Greater Peoria Leadership Council to see vacant Downtown buildings converted into mixed-use commercial and residential spaces.
“We’re really focusing in a three block area along Main Street from Adams Street up to Madison Street,” said Urich. “They have been working with the Downtown Development Corporation on the storefronts in that area, and the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council for office space, second story and above.”
Urich said with possible additional residential units coming online along with the planned apartments in the PNC Bank Building, officials may eventually want to see a grocery store in the downtown area.
“We’re going to hope that we get to the point where we’re able to see that the [population] density is there, that it can sustain a grocery store. It’s not there right now,” he said. “At this point, we’re continuing to look at the adaptive reuse of some of our larger buildings, and then looking at what we can do to try and fill up those storefronts as well.”
No talks on data centers
Urich said Peoria has not participated in any discussions about possible data center projects in the city. He said data center developers typically look for locations where they easily can connect transmission lines to the electrical power grid.
“What we’ve seen with Peoria is that really the optimal locations would be near some of our coal plants that we have out in the unincorporated area of the county,” he said. “What we are looking at is just really positioning the city for industrial growth where it makes sense.
“Obviously, the Medina Plains area, the Galena Road Industrial Park area — those are areas where we’re interested in seeing future industrial growth. So we haven’t had any conversations directly with any data centers, just simply because of the types of locations that we have available here in the city.”
Urich anticipates having a development recommendation for Exposition Gardens presented to the city council sometime in August.
“We’ve had three interested parties that have submitted [proposals], and the city staff and the review team will be meeting with them here in the next couple of weeks,” said Urich, adding it will likely be a while before a new residential neighborhood comes online.
“If you just look at some of the developments that have been occurring up north, the process of approvals and platting has been over a year and a half and we’re just now starting to see earth is being turned up there,” he said. “So I think that it’s going to take some time before we see anything on Expo Gardens, but the first step is to select a developer.”
Civilian service officers
Urich also said the city’s decision to hire six civilian community service officers is intended as a cost-effective way to increase the police department’s public safety presence Downtown.
“The cost of one community service officer is about half the price of what it would cost for us to hire a police officer. So, from that perspective, it’s more cost-effective,” he said. “It’s really about having more eyes and ears in the streets at the time that we have people coming into and leaving Downtown.”
Urich said the civilian officers will cover the hours between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and be able to assist with community events. But he stressed they will not be taking the place of police officers.
“They’re not going to be law enforcement officers; these are community service officers,” he said. “As you look at it, they’re ambassadors for the city, really looking to make sure that if they see a problem, they’re contacting the police.
“They won’t have arrest powers. They won’t have any of those responsibilities that a law enforcement officer has. But they provide those eyes and ears and that support to the police department in Downtown.”
