Part of Water Street to close because of flooding

The City of Peoria said today it will close Water Street to vehicles, from Main to Harrison streets, beginning at midnight tonight, (Friday, June 26) so crews can reinforce the flood barrier along the riverfront. The closure will last until further notice.

Businesses located on the riverfront and Water Street will remain open and will be accessible to pedestrians. Also, the Liberty Street parking lot, which is accessible from Harrison Street, will have limited parking spaces.

Limited access will be available to the parking garage for the Riverfront Museum and Caterpillar Visitors Center, the city said.

Because of the temporary closure, the Peoria RiverFront Market will move to the Marquee parking lot of the Peoria Civic Center, located at the corner of Kumpf Boulevard and Jefferson Streets, for June 27 and July 4. The market will feature over 75 vendors, live music, demonstrations and more. Hours for the market are from 8 a.m. until noon.

Free parking for this Saturday’s RiverFront Market will be available in the PNC Bank parking deck, located at Liberty and Jefferson.

“Water Street will remain closed to traffic until further notice as city crews continue to reinforce the area and monitor the weather. The upcoming forecast calls for additional rain with the Illinois River anticipated to crest on Sunday afternoon,” the news release said.

For information about the RiverFront Market, please visit www.peoriariverfront.com or their facebook page.

For updates involving city issues, please visit www.peoriagov.org or the city’s facebook page

Fast-track passed; Cat calls it significant for business

For the first time since 2007, a U.S. president will have access to fast track trade authority after the U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed it and sent it to President Obama for his signature. He is expected to sign it.

The legislation, officially known as Trade Promotion Authority, was passed over the opposition of Congressional Democrat leaders and labor unions. But it was welcomed by big business, particular those companies who rely on exports for a large portion of their business.

That includes Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., which called TPA “a linchpin that will provide U.S. trade negotiators with the strongest possible negotiating position as the U.S. seeks to expand trade with Europe, the Asia-Pacific Rim and developing countries. While Caterpillar played a leadership role in support of TPA, a key difference-maker was the engagement of Caterpillar employees,” the company said in a news release.

"Congressional passage of TPA marks a significant victory for supporters of trade and economic growth," said Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman. "Caterpillar has been a consistent, forceful voice for trade throughout our 90-year history; and we're glad to see a bipartisan Congressional majority reaffirm that the U.S. is serious about increasing trade. We're also especially proud our employees sent more than 27,000 letters to Washington to ensure their position in favor of trade was known during this debate.

Lauding the efforts of Obama and Republican Congressional leaders, Oberhelman added, “We are optimistic that TPA will lead the way for many new market-opening agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership."

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact between 12 nations that include the United States and Asia-Pacific countries, is what was behind Obama’s push for fast-track authority. TPA is referred to as fast-track because it enables the president to negotiate trade deals and then submit them to Congress, which can only vote it up or down without modification.

TPA has been provided to every president since Franklin Roosevelt, but it has not been available since 2007.  

Caterpillar said its employees and suppliers demonstrated their understanding of how essential trade is to Caterpillar's ability to grow and delivered that message to Washington. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and other agreements create opportunities to enhance Caterpillar's exports. During the past five years, Caterpillar has exported nearly $88 billion of products from the United States; during the same period more than half of the company's U.S.-made products have been sold overseas. 

While Caterpillar did not differentiate between its hourly and salaried employees is saying they made a difference in getting TPA approved, one of the labor unions opposed to TPA is the United Auto Workers, which represents Caterpillar’s hourly employees in central Illinois.

Out with the old, in with the new at Junction City

A once-popular restaurant and nightclub building that had become an eyesore is coming down, just a few hundred yards from where new retail in under construction at Junction City.

The two are related as Junction City owners and developers continue expanding and improving that shopping center at Prospect Road and Knoxville Avenue while they prepare the site where a new senior care residential center will be built next year.

While the new strip of stores in Junction City, on the east side of the property, is going up with an anticipated completion by August, demolition started on the former American Pi building at 5720 N. Knoxville Ave., just south of Junction City on Knoxville Avenue. It will be down in about a week, said Chuck Hollis, a partner with Criterion Development Co.

Hollis said his firm will develop the senior care center site but will not operate it. He said he is unable yet to identify who will operate the center because the contract hasn’t been finalized. Noting there is still architectural work for the building and design work for the site to be completed, Hollis said construction won’t begin until 2016.

Another piece to the development is a new intersection that the city of Peoria has approved, he said. That intersection, which will include traffic control signals, will be at the entrance to Donovan Park and will match with a new entrance to the senior center that will double at the chief access point from Knoxville Avenue into Junction City. The drive will go underneath one of the spans of the Rock Island Greenway bridge that spans Knoxville, Hollis said, as per an agreement between Criterion Development and the Peoria Park District, which owns the bridge.

The building that was most recently American Pi, which closed nearly eight years ago, had earlier housed restaurants that just never seemed to succeed for very long there. That includes a steak restaurant known for its quality food.

That site also once housed a small motel that was razed several years earlier.

The 90-unit senior complex was originally going to be built on Junction City’s east side, where the new retail now is under construction. The size of the four-story housing complex drew opposition from neighboring residents, which caused the change in plans.

The new retail strip will be styled like the rest of Junction City and will hold five businesses. Hollis said four of the five already are leased. One of them will be a restaurant called Hacienda el Mirador, partly owned by Antonio Vazquez, long-time maintenance supervisor of Junction City, Hollis said.

A beauty salon, Duke Design, is another leased tenant.

He said he is not yet able to identify the other tenants planned for the new building.

Gliding through the Duryea Festival

 Since he was a child, Roger Brown has been a big part of the family hobby: restoring historic automobiles.

Now retired, the Peora man heads up the hobby started by his father and is proud of the tradition as well as the collection of cars in the family. That includes the 1916 Glide that was manufactured in Peoria and is similar to the most famous Glide of them all -- the one in which Teddy Roosevelt toured the Peoria area in 1910 annd dlcared Grandview Drive "the world's most beautiful drive."

"It was quite an automobile. Still is," said Brown, standing proudly beside his dark blue Light Six-40 Touring sedan that he displayed this past weekend at the Duryea Festival in Peoria Heights.

Outside this weekend, the car is on display at the Wheels O' Time Museum in Dunlap, north of Illinois Route 6 on Illinois Route 40. It has been displayed there the past 15 years.

There were many antique vehicles displayed at the festival. Not only did it have its annual auto show of vintage cars and trucks, the festival also had a gathering of antique bicycles, highlighted by several of the high-wheeled bicycles of the type that were made in Peoria Heights at the turn of the century -- the 20th century, that is.
Some of those bicycles were seen outside the Heights late Saturday afternoon, when they toured part of the Rock Island Trail, including crossing the new bridge built for the trail over Knoxville Avenue at Junction City.

Brown, who is a member of the Illinois Valley Antique Automobile Club -- the oldest continuous meeting club in Illinois, since 1954 -- ­committed to bringing his Glide back to the festival next year. He also committed to putting it in the parade that annually opens the festival. That is, he intends to drive it in the parade.

"It will run, but it needs some fine tuning before I can drive it in a parade," he said.

The Glide, which starts with a crank, was manufactured at the now-defunct Bartholomew Company in Peoria. It sold for $1,095 new.

This particular car has quite a history, Brown said. While he doesn't its earliest history, he knows it was once owned by Jack Johnson, one of several Glides he owned. He sold it to a Rockford man who restored it to its original condition and displayed it in that city for several years.

It later was acquired by a man who displayed it in Reno, Nevada and later in California. It was there that Kent Brown of Peoria, Roger's father, saw it and bought it, believing it should be returned to the city of its birth.

There are only 15 or 16 Glides remaining worldwide, Brown said, and not all of them are restored and in driveable condition. This particular car includes a removable top and side curtains.

"The Bartholomew Company made the Glide from 1904 to 1917. The 1916 model came in dark blue. That's the only color they made them in that year," he said.

After the Duryea Festival the Glide was returned to the Wheels O' Time Museum, which is open for the summer, through Oct. 31, from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sunday.

For more information about the museum visit www.wheelsotime.org.