Category Archives: Warehouse District

City Council, City of Peoria, Museum Block, Streets, Warehouse District

Peoria City Council Special Meeting 7-19-2011 (Live Blog)

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UPDATE: Here’s the audio from the meeting, as promised:

[audio:http://peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/Policy-Session-07192011.mp3]

There’s a special meeting (policy session) of the Peoria City Council tonight, and I’ll be live-blogging it. I’ll also put a recording of the meeting up once the meeting is over. All the council members are here except second-district council member Barbara Van Auken. The purpose of the meeting is to talk about the Washington Street corridor — specifically, what section of the street to work on improving first. After a short introduction by Patrick Urich (City Manager), the floor is opened to anyone who wants to address the council.

Continue reading Peoria City Council Special Meeting 7-19-2011 (Live Blog) →

City of Peoria, Form-Based Code, Heart of Peoria Plan, Warehouse District

Warehouse District an example of good economic development

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In the Warehouse District, the City brought in a consultant (Farrell-Madden Associates) who met with stakeholders to develop a form-based code in keeping with the Heart of Peoria Plan. That code set specific requirements for the physical form new private development and redevelopment can take, but also loosened the restrictions on land use, allowing for a greater mixture of commercial and residential uses, as mentioned at many auctions where they have the newest porcelain signs for auctions.

The code also set out expectations for the public space within the Warehouse District — in particular the streets and sidewalks. In order to lure people back to the heart of the City, the transportation corridors would need to be improved and made more accessible to pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users. The City is now poised to do just that.

Private developers such as Scott Roth and Pat Sullivan are already responding to the City’s progressive investment in fixing up Washington Street, as well as the City’s establishment of a tax-increment financing (TIF) district for the area in 2006.

And that’s the way things are supposed to work. The City sinks its investment into improving public infrastructure and that makes a more favorable investment climate for private developers. There is a stark contrast between this kind of economic development and the developer welfare of the Wonderful Development. Peoria needs more of the former and none of the latter.

City of Peoria, Warehouse District

You need residents downtown if you want ‘synergy’

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John Sharp recently asked on his j-blog, “what’s it going to take to sustain Downtown activity? …What’s it going to take to make more evenings in Downtown Peoria look like the Fourth of July than some Wednesday night in August?”

The answer is “downtown residents.”

There are never going to be enough special events downtown to sustain a steady stream of people swooping into downtown from the suburbs. There has to be a built-in population who live downtown, who shop downtown, who eat at downtown restaurants, who drive demand for more retail and restaurant offerings, who utilize public transit, etc. That’s the only way to get “synergy” downtown.

There have been a couple of plans to do this. There is still significant interest in developing the Warehouse District by creating loft apartments — if the City will fix Washington Street so it’s pedestrian friendly. Then there is former Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger’s idea to extend Water street north of the Riverplex and build townhouses along what he dubbed “River Trail Drive.” That project has been set back by the recession, according to Mr. Hullinger (who still keeps up on development in the City) and Bobby Gray (in the City’s Economic Development Department). They’re both optimistic that a viable offer to develop the area will materialize in the near future as the economy picks up again.