The Rise & Fall Of Peoria, Illinois

Peoria, Illinois. This is my home. I was born and raised here.

Peoria has a unique history and heritage. It is most noted as a rough and tough rivertown. The popular phrase “Will it play in Peoria,” came about during the vaudeville days. If your act survived playing in Peoria, your act was deemed to play *anywhere*. If not, you had to revamp your act or cancel it.

And being a rough and tough rivertown, Peoria had its colorful characters, most notably, the Shelton Gang, who in the 20’s ran bootlegging operations from the southern US as well as interests in gambling.

In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, Peoria’s government became very corrupt. It wasn’t until the likes of former Mayor Bob Lehnhausen and Merle Yontz who worked to convert the city government to the current council-manager form of government which is used today.

Peoria, like other cities, has had its fair share of problems to overcome over the years. And with good leadership and active citizens, these problems were overcome. However, it somewhat scares me about the problems we are encountering this day and age that will leave our great city into either a massive ghetto or ghost town. Let’s examine some of the things that are sending Peoria into decline.

Of course, if there are some mistakes or if I have some of the fact wrong, please fee free to correct me. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not always right.


Peoria Civic Center
The Peoria Civic Center could almost be considered Peoria’s foremost boondoggle. And I write this with mixed emotions because I’ve attended scores of events over the past 24 years at the Civic Center. I believe the first concert I went to there was Cheap Trick in ’82. I’ve seen a number of hockey games, basketball games, football games, been to auto shows, Area Business Connections, receptions, and seen acts from Sam Kinison to Jerry Seinfeld to Alice Cooper. I’ve had a lot of fun and truly enjoyed myself at the Civic Center.

But was the Civic Center vital to the growth and well being of Peoria? Probably not.

And Peoria is not the only municipality to fall into this trap; many other towns and small cities think that they need a facility to bring events to their town in order to generate out of town revenue and offer cultural diversity to its citizens. Sure, it probably does bring in some revenues, but not nearly enough to offset the added expenses to run a facility like that of our Civic Center.

When the Civic Center was first being planned, the city of Peoria would need to initiate a new tax, the Hotel, Restaurant and Amusement Tax, or HRA Tax to support the Civic Center and pay off its debts. It was theorized that after roughly 20 years, the Civic Center debt would be retired and able to pay for itself. The HRA tax would then be rescinded and any revenues made off of the Civic Center would help to lower other taxes.

Sounds like a great plan. Too bad it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, the Civic Center has been a financial burden on the city; creating deficits that the city must fill, leaving less money for other needed expenditures.


Other Development Debacles
There have been many other development projects that have become boondoggles themselves over the past 10 years.

Peoria’s Riverfront, which was hoped to spur additional interest and attract regional visitors to downtown Peoria has been something of a disappointment. The architecture, style and design of what was built on the Riverfront are exceptional. It has truly improved the ascetics of the area; a far cry from what a dump it used to look like. But it seems various restaurants and whatever retail shops are unable to stay in business.

And the city council and various others have made things more difficult from time to time. If you remember back in the late 90’s when Hooters wanted to move into the Riverfront Village area, there was opposition with Hooter’s even coming to town. The opposition claimed it was the exploitation of women, though you could see more scantily clad women at any public swimming pool. The argument that was used to discourage Hooter’s from coming to Peoria was that Riverfront Village was designed to only house 2 restaurants, with the remainder being retail shops. Damon’s and Joe’s Crab Shack were the 2 existing restaurants at the time. It was known that the then-current Mayor Bud Grieves’ wife was devoutly religious and obvious that she opposed a Hooter’s opening in Peoria. Mayor Grieves on the other hand, a relatively successful businessman, knew that Hooter’s would bring in strong sales tax revenues for the city. It’s my belief that the Mayor had a balancing act between Peoria, family and religion. Eventually a compromise was struck which placed Hooter’s further south on Constitution St, now known as Water St. Eventually, Old Chicago established business in Riverfront Village where Hooter’s wanted to set up; so then there were three (3) restaurants located there. What happened to the argument that Riverfront Village could only accommodate two restaurants (just as well, Damon’s eventually closed up shop as well as the only existing retail store)? And Hooter’s, well I haven’t seen any numbers, but I would guess it’s probably one of the most successful restaurants in downtown, if not *the* most successful.

To augment the Riverfront, the Gateway building was established to offer a place for receptions and banquets. Again, a very nice facility, but still a non-essential luxury. To date, it has yet to see a profit; instead it has only hemorrhaged money for the city of Peoria.

The hemorrhaging of money holds true for the Peoria Park District’s RiverPlex (originally known as the RecPlex). A great state-of-the-art facility for well-being, but another boondoggle. The real tragedy of this is private fitness centers must support this money-draining project with property tax dollars so it may compete against them. One of the arguments used to go ahead with the building of the RiverPlex was that those who work downtown would want to do their workouts where it was close to their employment. I would guess 90% of these people live on the north end of town. Couldn’t they just go home and use a fitness center already closer to home. The powers that be also claimed that low income earners and the disadvantaged would have a place to go for quality fitness. Unfortunately, the only hours these people could use the RiverPlex were during off hours when it was unlikely for them to use the place at all. To date, the RiverPlex continues to lose money for the park district and the city.

Other developmental projects in Peoria over the past 10 years have misused, or abused, tax increment financing (TIF) policies and eminent domain. This would include the Campustown project at University and Main Streets, the Midtown Plaza on Knoxville and O’Brien Field. The use of TIFs and eminent domain should only be used for municipal purposes, i.e. a new highway needs to be build or a school needs to expand. Instead, private commercial development has been receiving these things when instead the free market should have dictated how these developments should have been crafted. This resulted in homeowners becoming displaced and receiving, at best, fair value for their home. It also resulted in commercial developers and property managers not having to pay property tax, or discounted property tax for a specified period of time. The construction of Midtown Plaza was the beginning of the end for the East Bluff neighborhood.

All of these developments have placed undue stress on the city’s operating budget, which has shortchanged several essential services for the city and its citizens; the most noted being Fire Station 11 which was closed around 3 years ago.

To Be Continued.