PEORIA — There are 38 vacant storefronts along Main Street in Peoria, stretching from the riverfront downtown up to West Main Street and Bradley University’s campus. But there is a plan to fill them — a $25 million plan involving stakeholders from the city and the university.
Leaders from the city of Peoria and Bradley have been working together to craft a vision for a revitalized West Main Street corridor.
Bradley President James Shadid and city leaders have been having preliminary discussion as to how the two entities can work together to reenergize a corridor that is vitally important to both the university and the city.
Shadid, who spoke with the Journal Star, often comes back to one key word when talking about his vision for West Main Street: “Vibrancy.”
Shadid’s vision for the West Main Street corridor is one of both vibrancy but also connectivity. A connectivity that would give Bradley students a seamless path from upper West Main Street and Bradley’s campus to Downtown Peoria. It’s a vision he says will be great for the city, the university and its students.
“Picture 4,000 young people in a few square block area and then picture on just one roadway, Main Street, that would take them, that’s only a mile away, to a world-renowned Riverfront Museum, which we have,” Shadid said. “And picture a vibrant, urban Main Street that connects our university and that museum with the hospitals, the college of medicine, One World with CxT, Haus 1349 there, but tripled, quadrupled so it’s a vibrant urban area.”
Peoria, Bradley University ‘in sync’ on Main Street vision
City officials say they share in Shadid’s vision. Peoria Mayor Rita Ali has introduced an idea for connectivity along upper Main Street and lower Main Street that would see a CityLink-run trolley transport Bradley students from campus to the downtown area and the riverfront.
“It helps with security and students feeling safe walking. We’re looking at lighting … we want students to feel safe coming to the downtown area, to the riverfront and where some of the activities are,” Ali said.
Peoria is awaiting the release of a $25 million state grant that was allocated to do revitalization projects on Main Street stemming from the riverfront up through Farmington Road. While West Main Street is a crucial piece of that vision, Ali said the initial focus of those dollars will be on the lower portion of Main Street. The 300 block to the 700 block of Main Street will be the first part focused on, she said.
West Main Street is viewed as a key economic cog by the city. Peoria for years has been slated to receive a $25 million grant from the state to revitalize Main Street from Downtown Peoria all the way up through West Main Street near Bradley.
Peoria City Councilman Alex Carmona, who represents the 2nd District and West Main Street, said the health of West Main Street’s business corridor is vital for the city.
“It’s very important to the whole West Bluff, it’s very important to Bradley University … it’s actually, I think, pretty critical for the success of our city because we need Bradley, we need them to succeed,” Carmona said. “If parents are bringing their kids to potentially come to school here and they drive down Main and see all the things you, me and all of us don’t like to see which is vacant spaces and all these different things, it would be a tough sell.”
Carmona said the $25 million state grant is key to revitalizing Main Street, but he questions at this point if the city will ever actually see the money that has been allocated for almost seven years.
“I think we need to try and move the needle however we can locally, but it’s important, it’s very important,” Carmona said.
The corridor is “critical” to the success of Bradley in its ability to attract and retain students, Shadid said.
“I am well aware of how intertwined and critical the university and the community are to each other, and I feel like this corridor — I am going to call it a corridor even though it’s not yet — is so critical to our student experience and critical to our ability to attract and retain students,” Shadid said. “And critical to Peoria’s ability to attract and retain employees and people that want to live here.”
Bradley University will likely target federal and/or state grants to make improvements to its campus near Main Street for capital improvements. Those capital improvements, coupled with the economic force of the student body, should be attractive to businesses, Shadid said.
“Both on and off campus I think our students would want some more residential and dining options and I think they would like to see, as I think honestly the neighbors around here, the associations, would like to see a more vibrant urban Main Street,” Shadid said.
Shadid points to businesses like CxT coffee moving to the West Main Street corridor in a former Starbucks space as evidence that pieces of the vision for vibrancy are already starting to come together.
“I think of myself as a parent, you’re a young person, I think we might see things the same way as you approach a campus, that’s why this entryway is going to be critical in my mind,” Shadid said. “When you approach a campus I think you want to start to feel energy, the campus energy. I think you want to arrive and see a well-defined campus entry, I think you want to arrive and find yourself in a place where you feel welcomed before you’ve even parked your car.”
That donor-funded entryway is being constructed at the corner of University Street and Main and has seen Bradley’s old home for Continuing Education torn down to make room for the project.
Peoria working on West Main Street economic incentives
Multiple buildings along the Main Street corridor are on the market.
Several buildings along West Main Street that currently have a mix of occupied and vacant storefronts are listed for sale right now, including the old McDonald’s building at 1017 W. Main St.
A building hosting both apartments and businesses at 637 W. Main St. and another located at 1219 W. Main St. have both been put on the market for $325,000 and $350,000, respectively.
The building at 1219 W. Main St. is home to Loaded Sandwiches, the former location of Sunny China House and has two apartments on its upper level.
Similarly, the property at 637 W. Main St. plays host to Ribbon Records on its first level and three apartments on its second floor.
Peoria City Manager Patrick Urich said consultants for the city are currently working on a plan to deploy a tax increment financing district along West Main Street in an effort to spark business development along the corridor. He hopes to see that TIF plan presented to the Peoria City Council within the year.
“Bradley is an important institution for the city, obviously, so we have started looking at how we might begin the process of how we might be able to create a TIF (tax increment financing) district along West Main and partner with Bradley on how future development may look along that area,” Urich said. “… Main is a very important street from Downtown and the efforts we’ve got going on there to Bradley University, so my hope is now with a little bit of intentionality we’ll be able to see some additional development occur along West Main and certainly work with Bradley and the neighborhoods on how we can see more development occur.”
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: ‘Vibrancy’: Bradley, Peoria share vision for West Main Street corridor
Reporting by JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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