Daily Archives: February 21, 2010

Museum Block, Peoria County

County putting cart before the horse, twice

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On the Peoria County Facilities Committee agenda for Tuesday is a resolution to secure federal funding to build a nearly $7 million (completely unnecessary and wasteful) parking deck on the so-called museum block downtown. There are two problems with this plan, as I see it:

  1. The county doesn’t own the land on which they want to build. The City of Peoria still owns the former Sears block. The agreement the County wants to approve is just between the County and the Federal government, although it does include a commitment that the County will acquire “in its name…all right-of-way necessary for this project.” Last I heard, there hadn’t been much dialog with the City about transferring title to the land.
  2. The museum project doesn’t have all its money raised yet. During last year’s run up to the referendum vote, the County stated on numerous occasions that they wouldn’t start construction until all the money for the museum project was raised. The money hasn’t been raised yet, so why would the County consider starting construction yet?

If this resolution is passed by the Facilities Committee, it should be rejected by the full Board. It puts the cart before the horse, twice.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Mayor

Former mayor counsels council

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Former mayor of Peoria Bud Grieves, who also happens to own a hotel downtown, has written the current mayor and council a letter with some advice on how to handle the so-called “wonderful development” — i.e., the proposed downtown Marriott hotel deal:

TO: The Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
FROM: Lowell (Bud) Grieves, Mark Twain Hotel
DATE: February 19, 2010
SUBJECT: JOURNAL STAR ARTICLE OF FEBRUARY 16, 2010

I am writing to clarify my position regarding the Downtown hotel project that was covered in an article appearing in the Journal Star on February 16, 2010. The article, while generally correct, missed some important points of which you should be aware.

I am supportive of City assistance in this project and stated so publicly over a year ago. I am still supportive of the concept of public assistance but only for the purpose of tearing down Big Al’s and other bars in upgrading the entire block. It’s a stretch, but this can be interpreted as a public improvement that the City can choose to make to leverage the recently upgraded Civic Center – I understand the importance of this!

However, I talked to City Attorney Randy Ray prior to the interview and was told that the $40 million in public funds were not restricted to public use outside the hotel but instead could be applied to any portion of the project. That means carpeting, televisions, elevators, and even the walkway connecting a private hotel to the Civic Center could be paid for with these funds. This is simply not fair to taxpaying, existing Downtown hotels that have to pay for these very same things on their own to compete. If your goal is to offer public assistance to Downtown hotels to accommodate Civic Center conventions, then you should see to it that all Downtown hotels get public assistance! I would like to build a skywalk from my hotel to my banquet facility (Packard Plaza) and would request City funding assistance to do so.

The convention business is slow, and I have never seen the hotel business this bad. John Q Hammonds recently backed away from the build out of additional rooms at the Embassy and gave back $500,000 to the City of East Peoria. Does this sound like a strong recovering market to you? Perhaps this project will not go and let you off the hook. If not, I would urge you to limit the use of public money to public improvements, prior to issuing the bonds. Failure to do so will set an indefensible precedent, and you will have to live with the consequences.

Thank you.

The project’s developer, Gary Matthews, who last year confidently stated that he’d have all his financing in place by January of this year, now says he’ll ask for an extension from the City Council on the redevelopment agreement. He added this:

Design plans for the $100 million hotel are also set to change: Matthews tells us the “blended look” between the Pere Marquette and the Marriott will be slightly different.

There’s only one reason to change the design at this point, and that’s to save money. I shudder to think what the “new” look will be.

What the Council should do (but they won’t) is cancel the whole project for the same reasons they never should have entered into the agreement in the first place. Matthews’ inability to secure financing despite having 40% of the cost of the project covered by the City should be a clear enough sign to the council that this is a bad investment.

But then, bad investments are no big deal when all you’re investing is other people’s (i.e., Peoria taxpayers’) money.

Kellar Branch

Next obstacle for Kellar Branch trail dreams: reversion rights

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The Peoria Park District, City of Peoria, and the clandestine Kellar Branch Corridor Corporation have just about all their loose ends wrapped up to convert the Kellar Branch railroad to a hiking/biking trail. But there’s one more wrinkle left to iron out: reversion rights.

The land over which railroad tracks run is not always owned by the railroad operator or track owner. Rather, the corridor is often an easement on private property. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “easement” as “[a] right, such as a right of way, afforded a person to make limited use of another’s real property.” So in some places along the corridor, the city doesn’t actually own the land under the tracks, they just have the right to run the tracks over someone else’s property. That’s an easement. That means if the Kellar Branch ceases to be legally recognized as a railroad right-of-way, there’s a possibility that at least some of the right-of-way would revert back to the adjacent property owners. If that happened, then the corridor could not be turned into a trail unless all those pieces of the corridor were acquired through voluntary sale or eminent domain — likely at considerable cost.

There’s a way around this, though. It’s called “railbanking.” Railbanking is “preserving railroad rights-of-way for possible future use” (Wikipedia). Basically, if it’s railbanked, the corridor would continue to be treated as if it were still a rail corridor, even though it’s being used for other purposes. It preserves the corridor so that it could be returned to rail use in the future. It’s a legal sleight of hand maneuver in this case since the City and Park District clearly have no intention of ever reverting the corridor back to rail use under any circumstances. They just want to get railbanking designation so they can convert the right-of-way to a trail without having to pay owners of the underlying property for the use of their land.

According to the City’s latest filing with the Surface Transportation Board (STB), it sounds like this issue is a point of contention between the two parties. It will be interesting to see how the STB rules in the end. If they grant a discontinuance on the line, but don’t agree to railbank it, the process of converting the Kellar Branch to a trail will get a whole lot more complicated and expensive.

I’ll never understand why the City and Park District are so determined to turn this rail line into a trail. The amount of money, effort, time, blood, sweat, and tears spent on this project is disproportionate to its value, real or perceived. It’s become an irrational obsession, and naturally, it’s the taxpayers who will pay the ever-increasing price.