Tag Archives: Springfield

City of Peoria, City of Springfield, East Bluff

A closer look at comparison TIF

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Looking through the East Village Growth Cell (EVGC) TIF materials the City helpfully provided online, one page in particular caught my attention. It’s the one that gives examples of residential TIF districts in Springfield and Decatur. I decided to do a little more research on Springfield’s TIF to see just how successful it has been. (I’ll look into Decatur at a later date.)

The EVGC website states, “The Enos Park Tax Increment Financing District (TIF) was created in 1997. The TIF District generates approximately $450,000 annually. The TIF District contains both residential and commercial properties; however, it is approximately 90% residential.” The most recent TIF report published by the City of Springfield is the one for 2010, available here.

The Enos Park TIF’s equalized assessed valuation (EAV) in 1997 was $13,838,543. The EAV in 2010 was $17,314,380. So between 1997 and 2010 — 13 years — the EAV increased a total of just $3,475,837. That comes out to an average of 1.9% growth per year. According to the EVGC TIF Draft Redevelopment Plan, the proposed TIF area in Peoria had an EAV of $45,021,720 in 2004 which grew to $49,626,980 by 2009, or $4,605,260 in five years. That comes out to an average of 2.05% growth per year. That means that the East Village Growth Cell is experiencing better growth without any TIF at all than Springfield’s Enos Park TIF has experienced over the last 13 years.

Springfield is unhappy with the performance of Enos Park. Just last year they spent $122,500 on a new “master plan study” that recommends pumping $45 million into the area. They’re looking for additional funding sources as the TIF increment would not be adequate to cover an infusion of that much cash.

City of Peoria, Peoria Area CVB, Peoria Civic Center

Civic Center loses wrestling tournament to Springfield

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The Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation’s annual Jon Davis IKWF Kids Open will be moving to Springfield for 2011 and 2012. The Peoria Civic Center has hosted the event for more than a decade. The contest is held every January and has brought in anywhere from 1,300 to 2,100 wrestlers annually. It was held at Redbird Arena until 1995 when the group left to protest ISU’s decision to drop wrestling as a varsity sport.

In e-mails forwarded to The Peoria Chronicle by a source who wishes to remain anonymous, Sports Sales Manager Chad Mentzer of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau wrote, “After talking with Mike Urwin with IKWF, there are two reasons why we lost this piece of business…. #1 Hotels. Average cost [in Springfield] is approximately $20 cheaper per night. #2 Facility rental fees. Projected fees in Springfield are, based upon expenses from 2009, considerably less than the Peoria Civic Center.” The group sought a block of 400 room nights for the one-day event.

Joel Green, Director of Sales and Marketing at the Hotel Pere Marquette responded to Mentzer’s e-mail by saying that his hotel had “lowered our rates considerably for 2011… after holding our rates for 2009 and 2010.” January rates are historically low to begin with in the Peoria hospitality industry. Regarding the venue, Debbie Ritschel, General Manager of the Peoria Civic Center, added, “In this particular case the fact that they [Springfield] will not have to cover ice in their arena may have also been a factor.”

In April, Holiday Inn City Centre General Manager Sami Qureshi stated that the top reason conventions skip Peoria is due to the Civic Center’s rate structure. This recent convention loss and the reasons cited by the IKWF appear to support that contention.

The loss of this event also highlights the competitive nature of hotel room pricing. If the Pere Marquette lowered its room rates below 2009 levels and Springfield was still able to offer rates $20 per night lower, one wonders how a four- or five-star Marriott hotel will be able to offer competitive rates that are high enough to pay off the debt service on a $37 million bond taken out by the City of Peoria.