This picture wasn’t shown in the council chambers tonight, but it could have been. This is a picture of my late grandmother’s business, Merchant’s Cafe, in the late 1960s. It was located on Sheridan Road, near Loucks, and that’s the area being targeted by the city’s new façade improvement program.
As a part of commercial revitalization, City staff has partnered with property and business owners on North Sheridan to develop a Facade Improvement Program in order to improve the area’s physical characteristics through the enhancement of the aesthetics and attractiveness of the commercial properties. These improvements will increase the community pride of the adjacent neighborhoods and encourage business recruitment and expansion in the area.
Much like councilman Manning’s initiative along Prospect Road, councilwoman Van Auken deserves kudos for her work on putting this program together. She enlisted the help of five Bradley University students for marketing this initiative — three of whom were in the council chambers tonight — which is a brilliant way to give students real-life experience and save the city some money.
Not that the city isn’t putting any money into this initiative. On the contrary, $100,000 was allocated for the Program. They will pay 50% of the total cost of improvements to each property or $20,000, whichever is less. It warms my heart to see the city spending money in the older neighborhoods to revitalize these neighborhood centers, just like the Heart of Peoria Plan directs.
If you’ve seen this stretch of properties, you’ve seen that it hasn’t been updated in quite a while. In fact, in the picture above, just to the right of Merchant’s Cafe is a business called Florence’s Beauty Shop. If you go by that shop today, you’ll see that store front looks almost exactly the same 35 years later, the faded paint being the only difference.
This is a perfect location to enact the Heart of Peoria Plan. Narrow the road a bit and add diagonal parking. Update the façades and sidewalks. The neighborhoods surrounding these businesses are stable. This area could be easily revitalized and draw new businesses to this corridor.
Not surprisingly, the motion passed unanimously. I expect Whitey’s Tap will be the first business to take advantage of the new program.
CJ, Our association met with this group for a planning session, of which many excellent ideas were exchanged. The area in question is just outside of our association’s northern boundaries, but we are hoping that it will impact our area in a positive way. I am not certain that diagonal parking can be done as Sheridan may not be wide enough there, but our neighborhood is advocating strongly that traffic patterns change through our residential area leading to this buisness area. It would be nice to have the Lipmann’s building as a mini mall with a coffee house utilizing those beautiful windows and enjoying that landscaping that is already there, also including speciality shops not located elsewhere in the city. This would provide positive day time traffic to compliment some of the evening orientated businesses already present. This restoration project has high hopes, we hope that additional resources will also be invested in the areas immediately surrounding this district to give it even more appeal, especially on the arteries of Sheridan and W. McClure.
Paul Wilkinson, President
Altamont Park N.A.
CJ,
As always, I’m very grateful for your commentary and support. This project has gained the support of the businesses (including the owners of Lippmann’s!) and surrounding neighborhoods. Besides the Bradley students, we have a wealth of FREE support–Ed Barry, architect of apaceDesign; Dan Callahan of Gregg Florist; Mary Ardapple of Apple’s Bakery; a landscape architect; a banker; Bill Washkuhn, Chair of the Heart of Peoria Commission and one of the foremost land use attorneys in the area; Maloof Commercial Realtors and many others.
From getting to know you, I know that you believe that there’s very little that people of good will and determination can’t accomplish for themselves.
Thanks again,
Barbara
Great move by the city.
Even though I live in a “newer” (35 year old) house, I love the older parts of town. I used to live across from Glen Oak Park and I loved it.
Cool photo also.
Why is it only 1 business on there had the sense and where-with-all and took on the responsibility to maintain its infrastructure? That business has left. I speak of Lippmans. All the other buildings around it look like crap for the most part.
I found it interesting one night watching the news, they interviewed the owner of Whitey’s tip top whatever. They said he had been there 15+ some years. He isn’t some start up. So why exactly hasn’t he kept his place updated? Why does his place look way more run down than Lippmans? But he will sure be happy to take some city money. To some degree those around Lippmans bear some responsibility for driving them off. Whitey included.
I am glad the city wants to invest in that area but there needs to be something done on the enforcement side too. Maintaining your infrastructure is part of your business expense. If you can’t bear the cost, you can’t bear to be in business. I see the surrounding businesses around Lippman’s as being in themselves, irresponsible. They failed the area as much as the anyone else. That the city is putting money up to help them… er bail them out maybe? Really leaves me conflicted. I just can’t help but feel we would be throwing money at some people who are not going to make the most of it.
There was ONE good citizen in that small business zone. Now there is none.
I do agree that that area certainly makes for an ideal ‘neighborhood center’ if done right.
Mahkno,
I don’t know the financial condition of the businesses in that area. It could be that they simply can’t afford to make major investments in their façades and stay profitable. I imagine it’s not the highest priority on their list. As long as they keep their properties clean and free of code violations, maybe that’s all they can do. I’m not trying to make excuses; I’m just saying I don’t know.
What I do know is that the city doesn’t have any trouble building a parking deck downtown for a group of doctors that are waaaaay more profitable than Whitey’s Tap. And they don’t have trouble offering property tax incentives to David Joseph so he could build Mid-Town Plaza and put neighborhood grocery stores out of business. And they don’t bat an eye at making all kinds of infrastructure improvements for car dealerships and large retail stores on the north end of town. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for — in fact, I think it’s about time that — the city gave some money to businesses like Whitey’s, which has been there for 15+ years maintaining a stable business without asking for a cent from City Hall, to help them make their businesses look a little more updated and fresh, to help attract new business to that corridor. Why should it be only new businesses that get all the money and incentives from the city that makes it easier for them to compete with established businesses?
I’m glad to see the city trying to help these businesses. I think they’ll rise to the occasion and take greater pride in their buildings because of it, and the surrounding neighborhoods will be the better for it.