|
|
|
Someone could write a book about how East Peoria has remade itself over the past 20 years. It has tripled its sales tax revenues and cut its city property tax rates by 60 percent in that time.
That’s not the result of luck, though good fortune came the city’s way when it landed the Par-A-Dice Riverboat Casino in 1992. Its steady annual flow to the city of several million dollars in gaming tax revenue enabled construction of the EastSide Centre and Harbor Pointe Marina.
Last year, however, the city invested in itself like never before. With confidence – and long-promised help from the state -- it went all in with private developers to build the latest and largest stages of the city’s new economic engine.
City and business officials say they look back on 2010 as a transition year. Certainly, plans turned to action.
On East Peoria’s downtown riverfront, workers in September pounded nearly seven miles of steel beams into soft earth and started what will become a city landmark, the new Bass Pro Shop.
In its business district, the city ended its decade-long dream to erect a new downtown on the former Caterpillar Inc. factory site between West Camp and West Washington streets and started construction.
Fall brought the start of work on water, sewer and power lines, paid for with $26 million in funding the state first promised eight years ago for the East Peoria Downtown project.
In the context of those projects, 2010 indeed was a year of transition in the city’s efforts to replace its reliance on Caterpillar’s plants with growth in offices, retail, hotels, tourism and education.
In the bigger picture, “We turned a corner” last year, said City Administrator Tom Brimberry.
Bass Pro officials said the East Peoria store will generate 300 full-time jobs once the 145,000-square-foot complex opens this fall, and another 200 construction jobs in the meantime. Sales tax revenues will flow from the estimated 1 million visitors predicted to come annually.
That is what sold the city on the deal to borrow $40 million to build the store, which it will own, and the needed roads and infrastructure on city-owned near the Murray Baker Bridge.
Similar predictions of future jobs and revenues prompted the city to commit another $7 million to help cover the overall $20 million cost of a new Holiday Inn & Suites Hotel and upscale restaurant on the EP Downtown site.
Someone could write a book about how East Peoria has remade itself over the past 20 years. It has tripled its sales tax revenues and cut its city property tax rates by 60 percent in that time.
That’s not the result of luck, though good fortune came the city’s way when it landed the Par-A-Dice Riverboat Casino in 1992. Its steady annual flow to the city of several million dollars in gaming tax revenue enabled construction of the EastSide Centre and Harbor Pointe Marina.
Last year, however, the city invested in itself like never before. With confidence – and long-promised help from the state -- it went all in with private developers to build the latest and largest stages of the city’s new economic engine.
City and business officials say they look back on 2010 as a transition year. Certainly, plans turned to action.
On East Peoria’s downtown riverfront, workers in September pounded nearly seven miles of steel beams into soft earth and started what will become a city landmark, the new Bass Pro Shop.
In its business district, the city ended its decade-long dream to erect a new downtown on the former Caterpillar Inc. factory site between West Camp and West Washington streets and started construction.
Fall brought the start of work on water, sewer and power lines, paid for with $26 million in funding the state first promised eight years ago for the East Peoria Downtown project.
In the context of those projects, 2010 indeed was a year of transition in the city’s efforts to replace its reliance on Caterpillar’s plants with growth in offices, retail, hotels, tourism and education.
In the bigger picture, “We turned a corner” last year, said City Administrator Tom Brimberry.
Bass Pro officials said the East Peoria store will generate 300 full-time jobs once the 145,000-square-foot complex opens this fall, and another 200 construction jobs in the meantime. Sales tax revenues will flow from the estimated 1 million visitors predicted to come annually.
That is what sold the city on the deal to borrow $40 million to build the store, which it will own, and the needed roads and infrastructure on city-owned near the Murray Baker Bridge.
Similar predictions of future jobs and revenues prompted the city to commit another $7 million to help cover the overall $20 million cost of a new Holiday Inn & Suites Hotel and upscale restaurant on the EP Downtown site.
Moline-based Heart of America Restaurants and Inns and the city signed the deal in August. Construction begins this spring.
Those large public/private development deals kept to East Peoria’s now-established character as a self-made city. What transpired on smaller scales over the year, meanwhile, reinforced the city’s reputation as a welcoming place to do small business.
Where six businesses closed their doors for various reasons, six others moved in, most of them with ambitious plans.
Diana’s Family Restaurant, a neighborhood diner at 1011 E. Washington St., gave way in November to EP’s Timeout Sports & Entertainment complex. A combination restaurant, sports bar and banquet facility, it seeks to capture both local clientele and the thousands of visitors who gather each summer for national and regional softball and baseball tournaments at EastSide Centre.
Nearby, locally-owned Lester’s Donuts closed and the city’s third Subway restaurant opened in November. The same month brought Michael’s Italian Feast, an area-based business, to the former Schlotzsky’s Deli at Riverside Center.
At Community Plaza near Washington and Main streets, Firehouse Pizza replaced another restaurant. Leman Automotive took over a previous used car business at 2125 E. Washington.
At Fondulac Plaza, a long-time city favorite was reborn. Velvet Freeze closed in January, but by May new owners unveiled what they called “a whole different operation,” yet named for and still serving the old place’s best-known item, the Wonderdog.
Other locations also saw new arrivals to the business community.
“We’re very excited,” Brimberry said, with the coming of Kelly Ornamental Iron at a renovated truck depot north of U.S. Route 24. Its owners, after completing their move from Peoria County, will specialize in upscale iron products for residences.
R.J. Distributing Co. m, meanwhile, moved from Peoria to take advantage of quick access to Interstates 74 and 155 from its new location on Highpoint Lane near I-74’s Pinecrest exit.
Renovations at existing businesses included about $215,000 in upgrades at Dixon’s Seafood Shoppe at 1807 N. Main. Small businesses also filled out available space at the recently completed Grand Village open-air mall along Camp Street.
East Peoria’s business health is not solely determined within the city borders. Rick Swan, director of the East Peoria Chamber of Commerce, pointed to the new life given to the former Dragon’s Dome, now named the Avanti’s Dome.
“We moved forward” in 2010, said Brimberry.
According to the book, that’s what a city is supposed to do.
