The “Wonderful Development” (that’s what City Attorney Randy Ray called proposed downtown Marriott project when the City was still keeping it a closely-guarded secret) has yet to meet any of the deadlines in its redevelopment agreement with the City. The most recent Issues Update gives the details:
REDEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF PEORIA AND EM PROPERTIES, LTD. This Redevelopment Agreement was approved by the Council on December 15, 2008. This Agreement provides that the Redeveloper shall commence construction of the Project not later than one year from the execution of the Agreement (December 19, 2009). Alternatively, the Redeveloper is to commence within 20 days of closing the initial series of the Bond, and the Bond issue has not occurred and the pre-conditions to the Bond issue have not yet been met. There is another deadline contained in Paragraph 3.5 of the Redevelopment Agreement which provides that the Redeveloper shall submit construction plans to the City no later than June 1, 2009. That has not occurred. Although this deadline has not been met, the Contract remains in full force and effect.
Going back to Paragraph 3.2.1 concerning commencement of the Agreement, the Agreement provides that if the Redeveloper does not commence construction of the Project within 18 months from the date of the execution (June 19, 2010), the City shall have the right to terminate the Agreement.
According to a recent Journal Star article, the Redeveloper is “optimistic” that he will be able to get all the financing he needs to acquire the Pere Marquette and adjacent properties by January 1, 2010, or thirteen days after the deadline for construction to commence. That would leave him five months to submit construction plans to the City (already four months past deadline itself), secure approval, and start construction — or else the City could terminate the agreement.
I don’t think he’s going to make it. But then, I don’t think it’s going to matter, either, because the City never cancels redevelopment agreements that miss deadlines. In fact, I don’t know why they even bother to put deadlines into their agreements anymore when they’re demonstrably meaningless.
This Wonderful Development — to the tune of approximately $4 million in debt service per year on average — will continue to sail through, even as we cut police officers (to save $1 million annually), road resurfacing, animal control, and other vital public services. Your streets will take a little longer to get plowed in the winter, but we’ll have a downtown Marriott. The police will take a little longer to respond to your emergency, but we’ll have a downtown Marriott. That rabid dog in your neighborhood threatening your family’s safety on a Saturday? Call back Monday; the office is closed weekends due to budget cuts — but we’ll have a downtown Marriott.
As taxes continue to rise and service continues to decline, more people will give up and move out of Peoria. But that’s okay, because when those folks come back to visit, they’ll have a place to stay: the downtown . . . Embassy Suites in East Peoria.
Agreed. Same MO in doing city business for the 16 years that I have lived here in Peoria. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
I hope everyone who reads this blog, and agrees that the City needs to get out of the hotel development business, will make it a point to contact the City Council and ask them to walk away from this. This is an issue where the “Silent Majority” needs to make itself heard.
Excellent article, CJ! The idea that the city is funding this hotel when police protection, animal control and street repairs are being cut is absolutely absurd.
As usual we are putting the window dressing on before the windows are installed. Business as usual in Peoria.
Whatever became of the downtown Holiday Inn’s request for city help in renovations….I thought that was quite ironic for them to ask for money, since the city is always willing to dole it out for pretty much any major, non-essential project.
The issue comes down to, we spent so much on the civic center renovation (including a ton of meeting space), only to have the embassy suites and CONFERENCE center take a huge chunk of existing conferences and meetings because it is a conference center with an attached hotel. I work in the hotel industry, and I am not excited with another 500 rooms (with a real competitive product like Marriott, because the Pierre is no real competition with us), but Peoria does need to be able to compete to draw more tourism/conferences and generate more tax receipts. Now is probably a bad time to be loaning money when we are cutting essential services, but a hotel project like this could take 4 years before its done (look at bloomington’s marriott) and they need to get started soon or it could be further down the road.
It’s all about keeping up with the Jones’
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_e547dfda-bcfd-11de-a410-001cc4c03286.html
And the Uptown project in Normal is coming along quite nicely. It was a New Urbanist inspired redevelopment of the ‘downtown’ Normal area, that began about the same time that the Main Street (Med-Tec) was supposed to get seriously underway here.
Teplitz, for all their faults, was involved in both.
Another missed opportunity for Peoria.
It’s official, taxes are going up in Chicago, even though property assessments are down.
How long before we get the announcement?
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/10/property-taxes-going-up-in-chicago-and-cook-county.html