East Peoria City Council approves sale of property

The East Peoria City Council last night overwhelmingly approved selling vacant property in its new downtown to Chick-fil-A.The city is working with a local developer to attract additional tenants to the remainder of the nearly five-acre site in the Levee District. City Commissioner Tim Jeffers says he’s excited for the new fast food restaurant:“But I’m also looking forward to those that will associate and be located around the Chick-fil-A restaurant. It looks to be another piece of a great puzzle here in East Peoria that’s coming together very nicely.” Jeffers also says the new Chick-fil-A includes a drive-thru that was not part of the original plan:“The original agreement wanted to keep drive-thru restaurants off of West Washington Street. The intent originally was to have as much storefront property along both sides of the street as possible. And if you interrupt that with drive-thru restaurants, you lose sort of that downtown ‘look’ that we wanted to have for our new downtown area.”The East Peoria City Council also unanimously approved a measure that will allow people to purchase alcohol earlier on Sundays. Businesses and restaurants with liquor licenses can start selling alcohol at 10 a.m. on Sundays rather than noon.