A deal has been made between the city of Peoria and MJ Illinois LLC that should see repairs finally made to the 20-story Riverview Plaza Building in Downtown Peoria, bringing an end to a yearslong saga of drama surrounding the property.
The city and Riverview Plaza’s owner, Junghoon Kim, made the agreement Tuesday, just one day after appearing in Peoria County Court, that requires Kim to put $500,000 into a construction escrow account by Aug. 4. That money can only be used to make long sought-after repairs to the building’s broken fire alarm and suppression systems.
Peoria City Manager Patrick Urich and MJ Illinois LLC attorney Tom Leiter confirmed the details of the deal.
Urich said this deal is “a good step” toward seeing the reopening of the Hamilton Boulevard building, which was shuttered by the city in February 2024.
“Now we’ve got to see the contracts and the work performed, this is what we wanted to see all along was the building’s safety systems addressed and completed in order for the building to be active again, so this is a positive step,” Urich said.
This is not the first time MJ Illinois LLC has made a deal with the city in which they’ve promised to make repairs. In September 2024, MJ Illinois entered an agreement with the city that called for repairs to begin on the building no later than Nov. 1, 2024.
Those repairs never began, and the city and MJ Illinois became locked in a legal battle that threatened to see MJ Illinois hit with more than $2 million in fines. MJ Illinois, in turn, essentially threatened to walk away from the building and leave it in the city’s hands.
Urich said the deal is different this time around because the money put into escrow can only be used for repairs and cannot be taken out of the account.
“We’re hopeful he’ll agree to the timeline his contractors propose to him and he gets in there and does the work and gets it completed by winter of next year,” Urich said.
The $500,000 will go into an escrow account at River City Title, according to Leiter. Leiter said his client has been acting “in earnest” and has had the same goal the city has held of seeing the building repaired and reopened.
“The building is old, it’s got some age on it, but it’s a very good building and is a very sound structural building,” Leiter said.
A court date scheduled for July 28 has been canceled. Instead, the two parties will review the repairs in 90 days to determine if the terms of the deal are being met.
Leiter said the timeline for work will depend on the scope of what is needed but said the fire sprinkler system will be a quicker fix than the fire alarm system. A schedule presented by MJ Illinois in court earlier this month showed a timeline for repairs to be completed by March 2026.
“I’ve been given some assurance as of yesterday that money will be deposited soon, well before the 10-day deadline,” Leiter said.
Should MJ Illinois LLC adhere to the terms of this deal, it would bring to an end a saga surrounding the building and its enigmatic owner that has seen deals fallen apart in the past, former tenants outraged and trust stretched thin between the city and the owner of one of its most prominent downtown buildings.
Opened in 1967, the Riverview Plaza Building was purchased by Kim in 2021 for $3.8 million. After he purchased the property, former tenants said the building took a downward turn, using the word “neglect” to describe the conditions.
In February 2024 the city ordered the building to close because both its fire alarm and fire suppression systems were not working. In an April 2024 interview with the Journal Star, Kim said he was “doing everything right now” to repair the building.
In the 15 months since that statement, repairs have still not been made, and Kim has brokered two deals with the city, one of which he did not follow through on.
Lawsuits and unpaid bills at Riverview Plaza have followed Kim in the time since the building has been closed.
In 2024 Thermal Mechanical Solutions placed a lien on the building for more than $70,000 in unpaid bills. Likewise, a cleaning company hired to do work in the building sued him for $69,000 in unpaid bills. Roto Rooter later placed a lien of their own on the building for $54,000 in unpaid bills.
The case with the cleaning company was still being worked through in Peoria County Court earlier this month. However, the lien placed on the building by Roto Rooter was settled this month. The city of Peoria also released the building from a lien on more than $10,000 in unpaid stormwater utility taxes.
An elevator safety company placed a lien on the building in April for more than $4,000 in unpaid bills. That lien was settled last week.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: ‘A positive step’: New deal reached for repairs on shuttered Downtown Peoria building
Reporting by JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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