Category Archives: Riverfront Village

City of Peoria, Riverfront Village

Riverfront Village falling apart

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In June 2010, the City Council voted to replace the steps up to the Riverfront Village platform because they were all rusted out. That was blamed on the salt used to melt ice on the steps in the winter, and the basic design of the steps which apparently had insufficient drainage. Now it’s the concrete platform itself that’s falling apart — literally:

Concrete fell from underneath the Riverfront Village platform onto the parking lot below
Close-up of exposed rebar where concrete has fallen away

Hard to blame this on ice-melt, since, to my knowledge, the City isn’t salting the underside of the platform in the winter. This week’s Issues Update gives some more detail:

A portion of concrete fell from the ceiling of the parking deck about two weeks ago onto a car causing minor damage to the vehicle. National Garages was contacted and advised staff of this incident. In response, staff decided to check the other areas of the garage and have determined there were sections of loose concrete that could potentially separate from the structure and could fall. Currently, staff is removing loose concrete to avoid future incidents. As these areas are exposed, we will engage a structural engineer to review the work. We will also be working to remove some of the rust from the steel and repaint. Sealing these areas with new concrete is not yet planned as we need to determine the full scope and find a contractor to perform this work. We will most likely need to bring this forward to City Council as the costs will exceed $10,000.

Riverfront Village is twelve years old. Twelve years old and already falling apart. This has to be an embarrassment to the contractor/sub-contractor responsible for building this platform. It should be, anyway. Hopefully the City will take the time to look up who did the work originally and at least make sure they don’t hire the same company to fix it.

Best-case scenario: the structural engineer finds that the whole structure is unsound and must be razed. No offense to the tax-paying businesses on the platform; I’d like to see them stay in business downtown. But the platform never should have been built, and the riverfront would be better off without it. There are plenty of places nearby for the restaurants to relocate . . . like the retail space promised on Water Street by the new museum. If you find your home having damage like this and need help with claims, talk to experts like LMR Public Adjusters and get help.

City of Peoria, Riverfront Village

Questions about Old Chicago and Riverfront Village

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By now, you’re all aware of Old Chicago’s big announcement about their location atop Riverfront Village: they’re closing for the winter. The story was covered by WMBD-AM and the Journal Star. From WMBD:

Old Chicago along Peoria’s riverfront is closed until April 4th, according to CFO Dale Paulsen. Paulsen says it’s best for the riverfront restaurant to open on a seasonal basis until there’s a lure of more customers to the area.

This decision has raised a number of questions in my mind.

First, why are they waiting until April to reopen? Isn’t March Madness one of the busiest times of the year downtown? Why would a pizza restaurant want to miss a time when 20,000 people a day — most of them young kids who presumably would like pizza — descend on Peoria’s Civic Center? They’re going to open up right after this large event?

Second, what impact is this going to have on the City financially? We’re already losing money on this due to a non-profit organization moving into the old Damon’s instead of a tax-paying restaurant or other retailer, plus we’re having to replace the defective stairs at taxpayer expense, even though that should have been the developer’s responsibility. Now we’re going to lose sales tax and HRA revenue for three months, too? What implications does this have on repayment of the bonds used to build Riverfront Village?

Third, they really expect the museum to be their salvation? If they won’t open the doors when 20,000 people a day are downtown (March Madness), why would a supposed 1,000 people a day (predicted by the museum group) be worth their while? And if museum patrons wouldn’t park in Riverfront Village’s lot and walk across the street to see the museum due to fears of safety, weather conditions, or whatever reasons were given for requiring an attached parking deck, wouldn’t the reverse also be true?

Fourth, I thought Riverfront Village was built to lure people to the riverfront. Now Old Chicago is wanting customers to be lured by something else? Doesn’t this point to a fundamental failure of the Riverfront Village plan? Former Mayor Jim Maloof was quoted by the Journal Star in 1995 as saying, “The entire community is going to be thrilled when they see the magnitude of this project and what it is going to do for our downtown.” Fifteen years later, what has it done for our downtown, exactly?

City Council, City of Peoria, Riverfront Village

Cost to replace Riverfront Village platform stairs: $265,617

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The Riverfront Village platform was built in 1999 at a cost of roughly $9.5 million — $4.5 million of which was public tax money that won’t be paid off until 2018.

And yet, despite the fact that it’s only been 11 years, the stairs leading to the platform have rusted “very pre-maturely…to the point that complete replacement is necessary.” The bids are in, and the cost to replace the stairs is more than a quarter million dollars — $265,617 to be exact. Riverfront Village developers Mike Wisdom and Monte Brannan have declined to help with those costs, according to the Request for Council Action. Instead, the council communication says, “The Developers are committed to a separate improvement which will allow access to the platform and pads during periods of high water. It is hoped that the stair improvement and the alternative entry will help the businesses on the pad to prosper.”

Here we have a project that was designed precisely as a solution to the flooding problem. They knew the area floods and so they devised the raised concrete platform as the answer to that challenge. But they used materials for the steps — the part that would be under water during flooding — that evidently were not rust-resistant, and they designed no alternative entry to the platform that could be used during periods of high water. A rather staggering oversight, wouldn’t you say?

Now that the stairs are about to fall off the platform, the developers are not offering to help pay for their replacement. Instead, they’re offering to correct another design flaw, and acting as though that sort of evens the score. I don’t get it. The developers should stand behind their product and incur at least some of the cost of replacing the stairs. And the City should exercise some serious oversight of this new “alternative entry” the Developers want to build to ensure the taxpayers won’t have to replace that, too, in another eleven years.