Riverfront Park Will Lose 5.8 acres from Public Open Space
Loop trail will be gone. New street will cut through park from RiverPlex north to park end.
Contact Peoria City Council members: ask they oppose the Redevelopment Agreement.
Click here for a Google map view of Riverfront Park.
Click here for the development site plan.
Click here to vote NO on the sale of Riverfront Park.
Important Dates:
March 31 - The City of Peoria will hold an informational meeting at 6 p.m. in the City Council room, 4th floor of City Hall, 419 Fulton St., Peoria. The city and developer will explain the project and public comments will be taken.
April 8 - The Heart of Illinois Group Sierra Club will hold a public discussion at 5:30 p.m. at the RiverPlex Building on the Peoria riverfront at the end of Water Street. If you know any organizations, businesses, or other people who might be concerned in saving the park and the 5.8 acres of public open space please let them know.
April 14 - The Peoria City Council plans to vote on the sale of Riverfront Park land to a private developer. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 4th floor.
Key concerns:
- We need to keep public open space at the riverfront. Would Chicago sell its lakefront parkland for development? We do not think so. Peoria's riverfront park is for the people. Generations ahead should be able to enjoy the open space. There is little enough of it as it is.
- Adding intensive development with a large parking lot, lights, cars, etc., is detrimental to this one area of the Riverfront Park which is currently a welcome retreat away from more intensive riverfront activities.
- With prospects of downtown redevelopment increasing, preserving existing riverfront parkland is essential. New apartments are already being developed in the warehouse district and other locations. Better options exist for residential development that taking away public open space.
This land is owned by the City of Peoria and will be sold to a private developer. These acres will be taken away from public access for four, 4-story high buildings with 143 units and parking for 272 vehicles. The proposed plans call for a new public street to be constructed going north from the RiverPlex parking lot. This new street would separate the apartment parking area from what would be a strip left of public open space along the river. At the north end of the new street it would intersect with Morton Street which is currently the only drive-in access to this section of the Riverfront Park.
If the issue sounds familiar, you are right. Look back to the March-April 2008 HOI print newsletter archives for Tom Edward’s article on the first attempt for a private residential development at this same location. Tom wrote, “Keeping our lakefront green and inviolate is immeasurably less costly, yet infinitely more valuable.”
In 2013, version two of this project surfaced. Dave Pittman wrote an article for the March-April HOI e-news and included concerns about the bad precedent of selling part of the park and concerns about traffic, noise, and added pollution from the proposed new street going north from the RiverPlex. Now, in March of 2014, version three of this project is being considered at City Hall.
Please contact the Peoria City Council and urge them to protect our public parks and riverfront open space for now and for future generations.
Mayor Jim Ardis City Hall 309-494-8519 jardis@peoriagov.org
Denise Moore cell 309-213-6628 dmoore@peoriagov.org
Chuck Grayeb cell 309-213-6629 cgrayeb@peoriagov.org
Timothy Riggenbach cell 309-369-5233 triggenbach@peoriagov.org
Jim Montelongo cell 309213-1581 jmontelongo@peoriagov.org
Casey L. Johnson cell 309-363-3488 cljohnson@peoriagov.org
Beth Akeson cell 309-573-1117 bethakeson@comcast.net
Beth Jensen cell 309-863-0160 bjensen@peoriagov.org
Ryan Spain cell 309-256-2414 rspain@peoriagov.org
W. Eric Turner cell 309-253-2489 weturner@peoriagov.org
Chuck Weaver cell 309-360-4779 chuck@chuckweaver.us