And now a news report (courtesy of WEEK-TV) that will send shivers up the spine of every remaining homeowner in the Arbor District, and other surrounding neighborhoods:
Bradley University’s president [Joanne Glasser] has a vision that she believes will be a renaissance for the school. In addition to new facilities to replace Haussler Hall and Robertson Memorial Field House, new projects will be announced this spring as part of the university’s Renaissance Project. … Glasser says Bradley will unveil more details about the Renaissance project April 24.
Oh, great. The last time a Bradley president had a vision, a whole street full of beautiful, 100-year-old single-family homes were torn down so they could put up a five-story parking deck. The whole neighborhood was destabilized as owner-occupied homes started falling to rental property like dominoes.
I and my neighbors will be holding our collective breath until April 24, hoping that these “new projects” won’t “improve” Bradley at the expense of our home values again.
UPDATE: Shelley Epstein called me today (he works for Bradley now; he’s no longer with Ameren), and wanted to assure me and my readers that the university has no plans to expand its footprint. They are committed to their 15-year plan that was approved by the city, and are on record as saying so.
I appreciate the assurance, but he’ll have to forgive me and my neighbors if we’re a bit less than trusting, considering it was only a few months ago that they broke their last 15-year plan to which they were ostensibly committed. There are encouraging signs, such as the fact that there’s a new president now and the administration at Bradley has been having regular meetings with neighbors. Nevertheless, I just can’t shake my suspicious feelings. How does that old saying go? “Fool me once, shame on you…”
Like I have said; That new arbor will make a lovely sign for Bradley’s West Campus. Still, maybe Bradley should just fold and leave town so people in the arbor’s can be left alone.
The real issue is whether the Peoria City Council will eventually, finally man up and tell BU “no.” They created the institutional use ordinance, which BU violated like the way frat boys violate a drunk 16-tear-old girls. The PCC responded by rewriting the institutional use ordinance to accommodate what BU had already done by renting the homes they bought to students. The message was: “OK, THIS time we’re serious.”
My guess is that BU will start buying up property and trying to drive away holdouts — if they haven’t started already. And the PCC (which cannot say no to BU) will no doubt do nothing until it becomes inevitable they need to rewrite the ordinance.
Bradley should relocate to the south end and the city could force the owners out by eminent domain, and B.U. would have a clean slate to work with. Everybody we care about wins.
Isn’t Bradley University supposed to meet with neighborhood reps on a regular basis? Part of that ‘better communication’? Shouldn’t that mean no surprises? Like I don’t know… we should know about this before we are surprised to read about it in the paper?
Is this the neighborhood with the abandoned gas station and the empty lots along Western where the houses were so bad they had to tear them down?
Billy –
Pretty offensive comparison you used on fraternity members. Understand you were going for schock but you missed.
I’d say the City Council needs to “woman” up since this area is “represented” by a female. And saying “NO” just to say no, isn’t the correct response. Sometimes our city council leaders need to say yes to actions that are politically unpopular (and even against the overwhelming desires of the public) since they are elected not to simply vote based upon opinion polls but based upon what is the best course of action for the community as a whole.
Peo Proud: I used the analogy I meant to use. BU traditional has done whatever it wants to do, with only token resistance. It needs to end.
A city is NOT a collection of institutions. A city is a collection of neighborhoods. The city needs to stand up for neighborhoods.
Clayton,
Yes the Arbors is the neighborhood with the empty gas station and the green way along Western.
The houses being torn down are part of local initiative to build a greenway park along Western. Part of it has to do with dealing with dilapidated homes but it also is about putting park there to make the busy Western Ave more pedestrian friendly.
The Greenway Project is trying to do something about the gas station but there is a whole mess of environmental regulations that have to be dealt with when they buy it. In short, whoever buys it has to remove the fuel tanks, test the soil, if there is leakage they have to clean that up to. Big $$$$ for a small organization. Some folks want Bradley to pony up to clean it up as a peace offering to the Arbors but to my knowledge Bradley has refused.
Of course you used the analogy you meant to use — otherwise you wouldn’t have used it. I just think it’s an extremely poor choice and in poor taste. That aside, I still counter that saying No to Bradley simply to say no to them.
A city is more than a collection of neighborhoods. It is best defined by the entire package of the living experience and that includes universities, health facilities, cultural organizations and venues, parks and recreational activities, and other recreational and a variety of employment opportunities.
Neighborhoods are where we live and raise our families. Neighborhoods are not the defining characteristic of a city – they are the end result of the entire community make up. A well balanced and diverse community will have well-defined and thriving neighborhoods.
Since a lot of our members rented houses in that neighborhood, we used to frequently perform our fraternity rituals over there. It got us off campus and you couldn’t hurt the crappy basements. There were also some great porches to have parties on in the fall.
I wouldn’t want to live there as an adult, but it was fun as a college student.
Peo Proud said, “[city council members] are elected not to simply vote based upon opinion polls but based upon what is the best course of action for the community as a whole.”
They’re also not elected to simply vote for whatever large companies and institutions want at the expense of neighborhoods. I would submit that Bradley’s expansion as executed is not “the best course of action for the community as a whole.”
“we used to frequently perform our fraternity rituals over there”
This brings up lots of visuals. Hopefully no farm animals were hurt in the process.
C.J. – I don’t disagree with you that they aren’t there to provide support for institutions and large companies as the expense of neighborhoods. But they do have to balance competing needs. Sometimes, that means a negative impact on a neighborhood for the greater good. Sometimes it will mean a negative impact on a company for the greater good.
But I don’t subscribe to the blind assertion that anything good for a neighborhood must be supported or that all support for business/institutions is bad. One reason why I could never get elected in this town. I have eminently more respect for an elected official that tells me what I need to hear more so than what I want to hear. Sometimes I need to hear that there is a bigger issue at stake that my particular welfare or the impact of an decision on my life.
Peo Proud — I don’t believe that “all support for business/institutions is bad.” Let’s look at Bradley’s expansion for a second as an example.
Granted, I was not thrilled over their plans to tear down all those houses on Maplewood and expand their institutional footprint. But they did buy all the houses and yada yada yada.
My big beef with Bradley (and by extension, the City Council for approving it) is that they are putting a five-story parking deck on that land right across a narrow alley from single-family homes. This is completely incompatible land use and is frankly insulting and disrespectful to the neighborhood.
The city should have insisted that Bradley’s development on the (new) edge of their institutional zone have a mass and scale that was compatible with adjacent single-family homes. But Bradley didn’t have to compromise at all.
Bradley got nothing less than everything they wanted, and the Arbor District got nothing more than concrete pillars at city expense. That’s not compromise. That’s not “the best course of action for the community as a whole.”
What you said works both ways. Sometimes businesses/institutions need to hear that there is a bigger issue at stake than their particular welfare or the impact of a decision on their business/institution. There aren’t a lot of stable neighborhoods in the older part of town; destabilizing the few that remain is irresponsible.
We agree in principle……on specific issues, we may disagree on the application. But at least that is a start.
I agree it’s a two way street – and that in the past we had too many “one way streets” that the skepticism is high all around.
A. If Bradley would relocate to the southend, I would sell in a NY second if they offered me just a fifth what they gave for some houses on Maplewood.
B. Instead of the parking deck, maybe Bradley should be building old style rental houses??
C. Bradley will clean up that gas station site, right after they cleared Rebecca and Cooper Streets.
D. The Greenway is a buffer so residents of the Arbor don’t have to look at Western, not a friendly park area to hang out in.
E. Who was there first? The Arbors or Bradley?
Re “No plans …”: When I head this phrase, I think back to former Peoria Mayor Dave Ransburg. He never has plans to do anything, right up until the instant jobs were sent to China.
I will never understand this theory that so many people have that Bradley is so evil. They keep the Bradley-Moss, Arbor District, and Uplands stable. Look at most of the other neighborhoods in the second district. I attended Bradley and then bought a house in the second district in the Bradley vicinity and I can tell you I would much rather have Bradley students as neighbors than Section 8. Folks should embrace expansion of Bradley as they are a valuable asset to the City of Peoria, look how many graduates stay and work in Peoria and give back to the community.
Too many Peorians, especially in the West Bluff,
have grown SO anti- Bradley and anti-development that They’ve forgotten Bradley is the only reason Why Their properties have Any, REAL, value. If not, That whole area back to the Interstate would be nothing more than another slum.
Moss-Bradley, Arbor District, and Uplands residents knew the university was There when They moved in. So, Why complain about It now? These residents are like people who move near an airport and, then, complain about the noise from the planes passing overhead. Bradley will, inevitably, cross Main Street. So, Uplands residents might as well get prepared to sell. Last I heard, Bradley was offering residents VERY generous amounts for Their properties.
It’s unrealistic to believe the City Council will deny Bradley or ANY other multi-million dollar developments in, older, sections of town. Another reality forgotten by critics of This plan is the potential for the City to face a, bitter and costly, legal fight… in Which Everyone loses.
CAT would buy out the entire West Bluff, for Bradley, before It let’s that happen!
Peoria: Pardon me for commenting, but you do know, don’t you, that in the United States random nouns and pronouns are not capitalized? Right?
Also, anyone who lives in the West Bluff and doesn’t become convinced B.U. cannot be trusted to do the right thing on its own is probably not paying attention.
Wow! from someone who really needs a typo error reader. Billy, have you ever read your own posts? If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.
Also, what is the “right” thing that you would expect Bradley to do? Your right may not be the right of someone else. I agree with “Peoria” 100%.
Peoria, Emtronics,
Universities don’t have to expand their footprints nor do they have to expand their student base in order to be successful. There are universities out there that freeze their student bodies at a fixed number with never any intention of gettin bigger. Instead those schools focus on what is most important, academics! One might argue that Bradley needs to expand its student base to bring in more revenue. Well those ‘other’ schools focus on their endowments so that they don’t have to bring in more students, so that they are not forced to lower student teacher ratios, watering down academics.
Because they don’t expand their student bases, they don’t need expand their campuses. You only need so much room for a fixed student base. They do replace buildings from time to time to keep up with technology and to modernize. I don’t think anyone begrudges that.
What people are missing in the fog of publicity is that the current expansion has nothing to do with academics or expanding the student body. They are rebuilding their rec center which does not alter the footprint. They are going to rebuild the field house to add posh and accommodations for the athletes. Private lockers, private showers, private workout facilities. The new field house occupies the SAME footprint. So… why did they tear down dozens of beautiful well maintained homes? A farking PARKING GARAGE!!! They argue publicly that it is to provide parking for those attending sports events, relieving neighborhoods. Bullshit. The parking garage will do little for that. The garage is for the athletes so that they can drive from their off campus housing to the gym. The garage is for the athletic staff. The garage is for VIPs who are happy to lavish money on Bradley and especially the Athletic department. Don’t buy that? Maybe you didn’t get the Bradley mailings asking for contributions, where if you give X dollars, you get a VIP parking space. I did. It went into the trash. Tearing down the arbors had NOTHING to do with academics, nothing to do with expanding student bodies. It is for an Athletic program that sees itself as a distinct entity to promote and provide athletic entertainment to the public. This isn’t unique to Bradley but is symptomatic throughout the NCAA.
Those schools with fixed student bodies and stable campuses tend not to have powerful athletic departments. Athletics is important to personal development but it shouldn’t be central to your college experience, often over shadowing it.
You will notice that the most heavily endowed universities, with the highest reputations for academics and research, are not particularly well known for their sports teams.
I would dispute that West Bluff residents are “anti-Bradley” and “anti-development.” That’s simply not true. We disagreed with Bradley’s decision to put a parking deck across the alley from single-family homes, yes. And we resented the secrecy that surrounded the whole process. But disagreeing with that decision, that particular development, and that method does not make us anti-Bradley and anti-development in broad strokes.
What do we want? We want Bradley to be communicative and forthright. And when they do build and develop, we want it to be in a way that’s compatible with the adjacent neighborhoods so it doesn’t negatively impact us. Is that really so terrible? Is that unreasonable? I don’t think so.
“CAT would buy out the entire West Bluff, for Bradley, before It let that happen!”
Very doubtful.
Cat maintains relationships with many universities. Bradley isn’t so special, nor is Cat so beholden to Bradley that they would ever do that. The presence of Bradley university is convenient to Cat but if need be, they could easily go elsewhere. Bradley is not even close to being an equal partner in their relationship to Cat.
I do think Cat has sent mixed messages over the years but I do believe that Cat is concerned about stability of neighborhoods in Peoria. The stable older neighborhoods are an attractive draw for Peoria in recruiting talent to Cat. There is a growing interest in livable walkable communities among young and older recruits that didn’t exist in years past.
Second District Homeowner,
Bradley is a mixed blessing. It both hurts and helps the surrounding neighborhoods. Keeping the surrounding neighborhoods stable is a vested interest to Bradley. But… some years back Bradley went and expanded it’s student base. In doing so they failed to provide housing for those new students, the newly expanded student base… or rather what happened is they lowered the requirements to be eligible to live off campus. Rental housing off campus exploded. In effect they pushed students into the surrounding neighborhoods. There are residents in the Uplands who remember that even 20 years ago, there were still family occupied residences along Main and University. One neighbor has complained that when they bought their house 30 some years ago, they were surrounded by families, today they are surrounded by problematic rentals. That is not stability.
Twenty years ago, heck even ten years ago, the Arbors had the least number of student rentals, today it probably has the greatest. With the explosion in numbers occurring as a result of Bradley’s demolition. That is not stability.
As a further challenge, Bradley insists on more n more parking. Why? To better enable its staff and students to live farther away, to let them commute. Then they don’t have to live here. If the students and staff don’t live next to Bradley, who does? That is not stability.
The rental market is so saturated, that numerous formerly student rentals are being rented out to… the same sorts that live in Section 8. If you can’t get students, you will rent to about anyone. That is not stability but rather the cascading effect of previously bad decisions.
Bradley University can be a force for stability.. but Bradley itself needs to be stable. They need a stable fixed student body, that isn’t going to grow in future years. Ideally they should roll back the numbers to where they can adequately house its students. Bradley needs a stable campus that recognizes that academics come first. You only need so much space for so many students. If something does not contribute directly to academic learning then it probably isn’t needed. The problem is, it seems that every President of Bradley and even the Board of Trustees seems to mark success with the building of something. Bradley does not need more monuments. How about measuring success in the size of endowments? How about measuring success in how many students it can offer an education to for free? How about measuring success in the quality of the students it produces by their success in the business world? How about measuring success in the quality of its faculty and paying them a more deserving salary for their work?
We don’t need more monuments. Monuments are pillars of instability.
Mahkno,
I believe these are the ideas that keep Peoria from ever improving the older neighborhoods. A perfect example is DePaul University in Lincoln Park. It is has kept expanding over the years and helps keep the Lincoln Park area safe and thriving with college students and young professionals. You can’t be afraid of change and as said as it is sometimes older homes need to be torn down and replaced. I will agree that Bradley could do better at making any new development fit in with the neighborhood. However, Peoria has not done its part either by helping finance Campus Town which as someone who went to Bradley and now lives in the area is not a convienent place to walk to and do any shopping. Unfortunately the most logical place for Bradley to expand is to the West, which if I remember correctly one of the most vocal people against the expansion in the begining was one of the people that was paid the most for their house from Bradley. I realize I am starting to ramble but I will never understand why everytime a change of some sort comes to Peoria it is such a hard sell.
All that aside, from what a person told me that lives next to the new parking deck is that there will be a landscaped buffer with bushes, trees planted along side that alley. There will also be a black wrought iron fence the entire length. The alley will be repaved. He said considering the way some of the homeowners kept the alley from Maplewood, this might be an improvement. As for needing the parking deck, yes, it is almost impossible to find a parking space for classes during the day. In fact, if parking was so great around the Bradley campus, then why is Campustown’s parking lot jammed on the West side of it. I can hardly find a place to park to go to Steak N Fries and there is no one around. Bradley students must be parking in Campustown.
“it is almost impossible to find a parking space for classes during the day. ”
We have already thrashed this one out Em… there are plenty of spaces if you know where to look and are willing to walk a wee bit. Most peeps are lazy. Some of the difficulty you have is from all the asshats who drive two or three blocks to go to school or to work. It is boggling to see a student who lives on Main, hop in his car, cross the street and park on campus. Yes this happens A LOT. Throw in all the commuters, faculty and students who could be living within in walking distance of campus (ie the West Bluff; you dont fit that profile) rather than driving, there would be no need for a garage.
Just wait Emtronics…I bet you wont get to park in the shiney new garage and the parking on street wont change. Now if you can get yourself on one of the Bradley athletic teams… lol.
I don’t expect to park in the garage or deck. I’ll bet those choice spots will be sold or given to Staff and Sports. At any rate, that’ll free up some spaces for us peasants. Plenty of spaces if you know where to look for them? Huh. I sure would love to be taught how to look for them.