It turns out the rumors were true: Bradley is going to lease considerable space in Campustown for offices and classrooms (not a bookstore). However, it’s only going to be for a few years while they’re renovating Westlake Hall and constructing the Engineering and Business Convergence Center.
Here’s the full press release:
Bradley to lease two Campustown locations
Peoria, IL (January 13, 2010) – Bradley University will lease two locations in the Campustown Shopping Center to provide faculty office space during upcoming campus construction projects.
Property previously occupied by Blockbuster Video and Sav-A-Lot grocery will be converted to temporary space for educational offices and classrooms during the expansion and renovation of Westlake Hall. That construction is expected to take more than two years.
“We are looking forward to making this move so that progress can continue on restoring historic Westlake Hall,” said Dr. Joan Sattler, dean of the College of Education and Health Sciences. “The temporary inconvenience of this relocation of offices and academic support to Campustown will be well worth it when the University realizes the great benefit of the transformed Westlake.”
The use of the Campustown locations as transitional space for faculty and staff will allow the University to complete the new Alumni Quad and west campus landscaping earlier than planned. The University had previously intended to relocate faculty and staff from the College of Education and Health Sciences to Haussler Hall, but that plan changed once space became available in Campustown. Haussler Hall will be razed after members of the Athletic Department move from there to the new arena later this year.
Bradley will undertake an analysis of space in both Campustown locations to determine how they can best be utilized. The Sav-A-Lot site has 20,100 square feet and Blockbuster totals 6,020 square feet. The grocery closed on January 3 and the video store was shuttered in November. Bradley will have both properties under lease on February 1.
The University expects to continue to use the Campustown locations for transitional space once the Engineering and Business Convergence Center is under construction. No timetable has been established for that project.
The $22 million expansion and renovation of Westlake Hall, one of the University’s original campus buildings, will transform the facility into a modern academic building with 85,000 square feet of academic space, while retaining its classic architectural features. The transformed building will be six times larger than the original and the addition will rise to four stories, rather than three. A glass atrium will allow unique views of the historic clock tower from inside the building.
Westlake Hall will be home to the College of Education and Health Sciences and the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service. The project is one of six in the $150 million Campaign for a Bradley Renaissance. Launched in April 2008, the Renaissance Campaign has amassed more than $125 million to date.
When pressed, the developer from the Devonshire Group admitted, at the same meeting Stephen alludes to, that their main focus was residential and that they really hadn’t focused much on attracting retail tenent interest.
So after deciding to keep the retail space you think they then thought it would be in their best interest to just have it sit vacant and do nothing to find retailers to lease it? Devonshire is trying to make money meaning that every square inch of that place is either going to generate income or cost them money. YES ITS AN APARTMENT BUILDING of course that is their main drive but I never recall in any meetings or conversations that myself or other members of the neighborhood have had did Devonshire elude that they are just ignoring the retail or not attempting to secure tenants. They did mention the only retailer that had approached them was Dollar General?
Do you know for sure Devonshire is not actively trying to lease the space or is that just an opinion?
“Your asserting that Joseph’s is not selling the location…” For the second time, no, I’m not asserting that. Are you hard of reading?
“I would say that the main reason is a demographic that will not support most businesses and crime, whether real or imagined, is what is keeping main st where it is at and no amount of ornamental lighting or wider sidewalks is going to change that.” So you say, which gets back to your plan to give tax dollars to private individuals to move to the area and fix up their houses. I would recommend something more radical. I would suggest that we adopt land value taxation. It would require a change in state law, unfortunately, but then so would other tax initiatives like extending the enterprise zone time period. Land value taxation would incentivize property improvement because owners would no longer be penalized with higher taxes when they fix up their homes or businesses. On the flip side, landlords would no longer be rewarded for leaving their rental properties in poor condition or vacant. That would improve the neighborhoods and leave our tax money for what it should be used for: public works and public safety — including those reviled wider sidewalks and ornamental lighting that make the city safer and more attractive for everyone.
“But it’s Joseph’s job to sell the location. You don’t just build a strip mall and then wait around for merchants to beat a path to your door.”
Am I not reading this statement correctly? I felt the wording was insinuating that he wasnt doing that.
“So I say” I mean maybe Im totally off base here I think several people on this blog even have said they dont like to go to campustown due to a criminal element or a feeling that they are unsafe. In the article recently in the PJStar the owner of running central cites crime and a large amount of vacant buildings as being a reason for why he is opening another store on PParkway. “I know Running Central is an asset to the community. This will always be the flagship store but I didn’t invest to break even or lose money. I need to put this business in the best opportunity I can,” he said.
“Land value taxation would incentivize property improvement because owners would no longer be penalized with higher taxes when they fix up their homes or businesses.” That dosnt help locate people into neighborhoods that are currently experiencing a decline. In a neighborhood like the Uplands where there are people attempting to do work on their homes that would be great but in my neighborhood, for example, a fear in tax increase is not what is preventing improvements it is a lack of interest, money, skills and a large percentage of rental property. If a large number of the people moving into the neighborhood have no plan on improving their home how does not increasing their taxes if for some reason they do, encourage residents to locate here? How would that effect landlords at all? A landlord has no incentive to spend any money on a property currently, and under that system there still would be no reason to. A landlord who is currently collecting rent on slum properties isnt going to say “wow now that my taxes wont increase Im going to really make this place look great.” A fear of tax increase is not preventing slum lords from investing money into a slum property. Many homes in the neighborhoods around Bradley require large sums of money to really make them habitable and some of these costs tip them towards not worth purchasing for single family use which makes them attractive for landlords who then can stick 6 people in them and collect 900 bucks a month with nothing invested. What this translates into is that a landlord who dosnt care buys run down delapitated housing cheap and runs them until they basically need torn down. But hey I guess if for some crazy reason he decided to do a big renovation his taxes wouldnt go up.
I was responding to your statements about grocers not seeking out Campustown as a place to locate and seeing red flags because of the turnover in tenants. As I explained once already, “I was just saying that there is a selling/marketing responsibility on the other side of the coin.”
As for land value taxation (LVT), did you read the post to which I linked that explains LVT? It may help answer your questions.
I did read it. Ok landlord A. owns a piece of property that is worth 60k. He plans on doing nothing with it. If the land value holds steady meaning his taxs do not increase or decrease and he still plans on doing nothing with the lot how is it a change from the current situation. Lets say 5 years later the land increases in value so landlord A then raises the rent to compensate for the increase in the land value. He still has no interest in improving the property even if it would have no effect on his tax rate.
The LVT is only helping people that are actually planning on improving their lots. How does it effect someone who has no intention of doing any improvement on their lots? If I have no intention of residing my house or adding a sun room then the fact my taxes wont increase if I do is not really an incentive.
I think there is a false assumption being made there that landlords or people who are letting their properties fall into disrepair are doing so because of property tax increases. I think it would be good for me though but I dont think it would fix any neighborhood issues.
I do agree it makes more sense then the current tax system.
While the tax rate on improvements would be less, the tax rate on land would be higher. Right now landlords have an economic interest in houses that are rundown because the disrepair of the house actually makes their property taxes lower. LVT takes away that interest. If we converted to an LVT, landlords would see their property taxes on rundown properties increase significantly, and they would need to take some sort of action to mitigate their losses.
One action might be to pass on the increased costs to the tenants by increasing rent, but tenants would likely find a house in much better condition for the same rent elsewhere. Why? Because a rental house in good condition would not have seen a big increase in property taxes — while their land tax would have gone up, it would have been offset by the reduction in the tax on their improvements. Landlords with houses in good repair would have little incentive or need to raise their rent. So the slumlord would have to improve his rental property in order to remain competitive in the marketplace.
Another option would be for them to sell the property. If they sell it to another landlord, he would be under the same pressures to improve the property in order to be competitive. But since there would be no tax penalty for improving the property, the property might just as likely be converted to owner-occupied, which is also a stabilizing influence in the neighborhood.
The problem with that is the fact that many landlords rent for cash to people with no credit that are high risk or have issues that make them not desireable to more picky landlords. If all the slum lords around me just pass down the cost and do no improvements either A. tenants are pushed into nicer neighborhoods or B. they face heavy if not unbearable finacial burdons. Many landlords in say your neighborhood would not rent to tenants who live in my neighborhood. Also many of the owner occupied homes in your neighborhood or moss ave would not want the types of tenants living next door to them who live on Frink st right now. A shift in tenants from lower income neighborhoods seeking nicer competitive properties in higher income neighborhoods might actually destablize neighborhoods that are currently stable, owner occupied areas. To respond to this situation landlords in your neighborhood or moss would simply increase the rent to price out undesirable tenants but still maintain their bread and butter which is BU students. The hightened cost of rent would merely be passed down to tenants unable to relocate and cause more financial burdon to the lower and working class. If not neighborhoods like yours would see an influx of crime and poverty that would destablize it and cause residents to move out. Your also assuming people are currently not buying in those areas merely because they fear a tax increase for improvements. When I purchased my home my taxes were so low that even though they have doubled it is still a relatively low rate compared to most of the neighborhoods around it. So really as I do improvements it is only bringing the cost closer to what is par for the area.
Wow. And people call me a pessimist. 😉 You don’t think much of your neighbors, do you?
I am a realist. I call the police on a daily basis thanks to my neighbors. Some of my neighbors do not think very highly of me.
🙁 That really is a shame.
I mean the reality of the situation is that Frink st is 100% rental, much of it being low income. Couple that with a drug house across the street and four other rental houses surroudning mine, one being a HUD home, one being vacant the other two being run by a slum lord it makes for a very rocky coexistance. 🙂 My great neighbor, who lived next door, has closed with Devonshire and she has relocated to Armstrong meaning that I have also been dealing with people on her old property which is now totally vacant. Since she has closed someone attempted to break into our home amd we have had some incidents of vandalism.( I think caused by people thinking our home is also vacant or that no one is around to notice.) My wife and I, after months of begging to the police and BVA, finally got the armadillo in front of the neighbors house and are on a first name basis with the local patrol officers.
So now could a Piggly Wiggly play in Peoria at Mid-Town?
“So, I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly and got you another can. You want me just to go on and put it in the cupboard?”
Frink is an issue. I do know people on Bourland have been successful in getting problem folks evicted. Stephen, I hope you will continue to work with City ,Police and neighborhood association on these issues.If I can personally be of help, let me know. Whie I am sorry you are having issues in your area, I hope you realize not eveyrone is having your experiences and the entire neighborhood is nowhere near as you envision it to be. My biggest issues are the occasional drunk BU students. While I appreciate your views, I don’t agree with them. All neighbohoods across the West Bluff are having issues; we need to work together to do what we can to turn things around. Either that, or give up and move to Dunlap.
While I appreciate your views Conrad, I dont agree with them. While at your home you may just have an occasional drunk BU student further in to the neighborhood that is not the case at all. The fact that there were two seperate shootings on Flora in less then a month and a swat team raid two houses from the local grade school is very troubling. I am not envisioning anything. We have an issues with crime and drug use in our neighborhood that will prevent residential improvements and I think that pretending that we dont or turning a blind eye is counter productive. For the record before living in Peoria I lived in New Orleans and also in the city limits of Washington DC so to insinuate that I am just not used to living in an urban setting or that I am used to a quiet suberban lifestyle is not the case. Again I encourage you to leave your street and walk down Columbia Terrace and back up Armstrong, maybe even walk some of the side streets and really look at what is going on. FYI shoes over telephone lines mean you can buy drugs at those houses.
I am not ignorant of issues, Stephen. However twisting words and blog bullying won’t resolve anything. I’m happy to talk about issues with you offline at anytime.
Where am I twisting words? You are saying that your biggest trouble is drunk BU kids and seeming to indicate that is the worst thing going on in the neighborhood which is rediculous. You also then say “Either that, or give up and move to Dunlap.” Which may as well read if you dont like it leave.