Daily Archives: April 5, 2006

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, Museum Block, Uncategorized

Museum Square: Boondoggle in the Making, Part IV

I’ve pulled no punches in my criticism of the Heart of Peoria Commission (HOPC) in the past, especially as it relates to Museum Square. I still think they dropped the ball in a big way when they didn’t make any recommendation for or against the site plan, despite its obvious non-conformity with the Heart of Peoria Plan, which the council adopted “in principle.”

But the city council is not without culpability for that failure. I felt a little uncomfortable last night listening to one council member use the HOPC’s failure as an scapegoat for letting this project proceed unhindered.

The HOPC is not an elected body. It’s appointed by the mayor. They don’t make binding decisions, but merely recommendations. The fact that the HOPC couldn’t produce a recommendation should have been a sign that there were problems within the commission that were preventing them from reaching consensus. At best, it should have been a sign that the site plan was controversial. And the council — our elected representatives — should have stepped up to the plate and shown some leadership on that issue.

It’s not like there’s no precedent for the council to take action against the recommendation of a commission. The Railroad Commission recommended preserving the Kellar Branch for competitive rail service, but the council overruled them and approved turning a half-million-dollar asset into a bike path.

The buck stops at the council. Like it or not, regardless of what the commissions recommend or don’t recommend, the council is responsible for the decisions. And the decision to approve this site plan for the Sears block was a poor one.

Why? As I said earlier, the council adopted “in principle” the Heart of Peoria Plan. If that’s going to mean anything, it needs to apply to every developer, not just developers who don’t have Caterpillar backing. And it should apply to every project — especially a project on the “crown jewel” of downtown Peoria.

This museum project doesn’t conform in any way to the Heart of Peoria Plan:

  • The HOP Plan called for high-density development with large buildings, making optimal use of the whole block and having an urban character. The site plan is low-density; roughly two-thirds of the block will be open space with buildings and landscape that will look suburban in character.
  • The HOP Plan called for mixed-use with a residential component to make it a true 24/7 block. The site plan includes a museum, a visitor center, and some small retail that faces Water Street — all things that will close in the evening, leaving the block dead at night.
  • The HOP Plan called for building designs and materials that will blend with the surrounding architecture. The surrounding architecture is traditional, with brick and stone façades. The museum and visitor center designs are modern, with steel and glass façades.
  • While additional parking was envisioned by the HOP Plan for a high-density design for this block, the low-density site plan design doesn’t warrant additional parking since surrounding parking areas are sufficient.

The worst part is, the council had a chance to challenge this site plan, even as late as Tuesday night. Nothing has been built yet. These buildings are still just on paper. I know there’s expense that goes into designing and engineering those drawings, but it’s nothing compared to the cost of actually building the structures.

Unfortunately, since the council won’t stand up to Cat and has a handy scapegoat in the HOPC, it looks like we’ll be stuck with yet another boondoggle.

City Council, City of Peoria, Museum Block, Uncategorized

Museum Square: Boondoggle in the Making, Part III

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Of course, the truth of the matter is that this underground parking deck isn’t for the Central Illinois Regional Museum at all — it’s for Caterpillar’s visitor center. As councilman Sandberg pointed out, Cat originally wanted an above-ground [underground] parking deck built on their portion of the Sears block and paid for with federal dollars. But they found out that federal rules prohibit the use of those funds for [public] parking decks on private property. Furthermore, the Heart of Peoria Commission strongly recommended there not be any surface parking on the site. So Cat, rather than doing away with the parking, now decides to put the deck underground on the public half of the property and use property tax dollars (through the TIF) to pay for it.

The rest of the council is, of course, perfectly okay with that. They had all kinds of justifications for it. Councilwoman Van Auken said that removing the cap on the TIF wouldn’t take money away from essential services like fire station staffing. Bill Dennis has the best response to that spurious argument.

But the most embarrassing justification was the “we- have- to- approve- this- plan- or- Cat- will- move- their- headquarters- out- of- Peoria” reason. To hear Chuck Grayeb talk, for instance, you’d think Cat was poised to pull up stakes and move out of town any second, and that Peorians should be sacrificing their virgin daughters on an altar outside Cat headquarters and paying tribute money to keep them here.

Let’s face it — Caterpillar is a very large employer and has been very generous to Peoria civic projects and charities. I’m all for giving credit where credit is due. But that doesn’t mean our council should just rubber stamp every Caterpillar request. To do so makes the council a mere figurehead government that represents Cat and not Peoria residents.

City Council, City of Peoria, Museum Block

Museum Square: Boondoggle in the Making, Part II

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For further proof that this museum will be a bust, we need only turn to the parking lot debacle, which consumed most of the deliberations last night. The council voted to give more money to the Museum Square project (by removing the TIF cap) so that an unwarranted and expensive parking garage could be added.

Yes, the 75+ street spaces plus the parking decks across the street to the northwest plus the surface lot to the southeast are just not enough parking according to the council and Museum Collaborative. Why? On-site parking is “part of the success factor for the facilities being built there,” said one of the presenters. “This is Peoria,” councilwoman Van Auken reminded us, as if we all just arrived here from outer space. People aren’t going to walk a block to the museum because “we live in a northern climate” and the weather isn’t always good.

With all due respect, that’s horse hockey. Ever been to a Bradley game? A symphony concert? A Chiefs game? Steamboat Days? Skyconcert? I would submit that Peorians park on the street and in surrounding parking decks and surface lots for these and a host of other downtown activities — in all kinds of weather. People are more than willing to park a block or two away and walk if there’s something worth walking to. If the parking deck proponents believe that people won’t walk across the street to see our beautiful, new, state-of-the-art museum, then why are we building it at all?

City Council, City of Peoria, Heart of Peoria Plan, Museum Block

Museum Square: Boondoggle in the Making, Part I

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Let’s play the old game, “Who Am I?”

  • I will be a regional draw
  • I will revive downtown
  • I will raise a lot of tax revenue
  • I will be self-supporting

Who am I? If you guessed Museum Square, you’re correct. And if you guessed the Civic Center, you’re also correct. Yes, the promises are remarkably similar. Also remarkably similar: the prospect that this project will not be self-supporting and will need ongoing help from the city to keep it afloat.

Councilmen Manning and Jacob ran the numbers, and this project has even less of a chance of being profitable than the water company buyout would have been in its proposed first year. They convinced the council to change the language of the redevelopment agreement amendment to say the museum collaborative will not ask for any more money from the city.

I applaud their effort, but realistically, everyone knows the museum is going to come back for more money around 2010. And what’s the city going to say? “No, we’ll let the museum close down and have a big vacant building on the Sears block again”? Not hardly. No, we’ll be subsidizing this thing for many years to come. And it started last night with the vote to give them more TIF (Tax Increment Financing) money.