Page 43 - The Peorian Vol 3 Issue 1 Winter

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Businesses and organizations
that Bateman thinks could be
potential users of the Madison
include Caterpillar Inc., the
Marriott Hotel Pere Marquette,
Bradley University or musical
organizations like the Peoria
Symphony Orchestra.
J.D. Comfort, whose family has
owned the Madison for 25 years
and whose parents dreamed of
renovating the theater, is not so
confident such an idea would
work.
“My parents tried that 20 years
ago,” Comfort said. “Nothing
ever panned out with that. If
we develop that ourselves or
[if] anybody else [does], they’d
[developers] want a signed lease.
No one’s gonna go on there for
$10 [million], $12 [million] to $18
million, without a signed lease
from somebody.”
Despite the theater’s setbacks,
Comfort wants it to be restored.
He knows his family will never
raze it while they own the
property and that they will
maintain the outside of the
building. Whether the interior
ever gets the work it needs, he is
unsure.
There may be some hope.
Christopher Setti, Peoria’s
assistant city manager, said he
was sending off a Request for
Interest to the Comfort family.
The RFI is meant to drum up
interest for the development of
new construction on the parking
lot, which the city owns, right
next to the Madison.
The Comforts will get one
month to consider the RFI and
if they accept, a large group of
developers would be contacted.
Those developers would be
whittled down to two or three
particularly good candidates,
who would then be asked to
come up with a proposal.
“The idea here is that the
Madison Theatre is a local
treasure, and not only is it a
local treasure it’s on the National
Register of Historic Places,” Setti
said. “There’s nothing in the
world that prevents somebody
from merely tearing the Madison
Theatre down.”
The theater is in a tax
increment financing district.
Once a TIF is created, it captures
any new property taxes from new
developments in that area for the
next 23 years and puts the tax in
a special fund. The fund can then
be distributed elsewhere.
The Future Continued on page 44
This photo as well as those on the next two pages show how the Madison Theatre looked in its heyday.
There may soon be new efforts to restore the theatre to its former glory.