PEORIA, Ill. – Repairs could soon begin at the old Chase Bank building in downtown Peoria now that the city has reached an agreement with the building’s owner.
The parties signed an escrow agreement on Tuesday in an attempt to bring Riverview Plaza back in working order after a water main break left the building uninhabitable.
City Attorney Patrick Hayes says it’s been a long time coming, given that the high-rise at 411 Hamilton Boulevard shut down nearly a year and a half ago.
Since then, the owner, MJ Illinois LLC, has faced 18 ordinance violations and possibly $2 million in fines. But, the settlement with Peoria could solve both parties’ problems.
“We felt it important to prioritize the life safety issues in the building, so if MJ Illinois is successful in addressing the life safety issues, according to the terms of the escrow agreement, all of the pending matters against them will be dismissed,” Hayes says.
The agreement, according to 25 News, requires MJ Illinois to deposit $500,000 in an escrow account within the next 10 days.
That money will do toward fixing the fire sprinkler systems at Riverview Plaza, which would allow the building to reopen for occupants. According to Hayes, any leftover funds would be used to repair the fire detection system, HVC, and elevators.
Hayes says if there is no progress in 90 days, the city can reinforce the fire and building violations, including the fines.
“The goal of our code compliance efforts throughout is to seek the repairs and remedies, and not necessarily to seek fines; a fine doesn’t go towards repairs,” Hayes says. “We want to see the building owners put their economic capacity towards repairing the building, and we want to compel that to occur in a reasonable period of time.”
With so many code violations, Hayes says city staffers worry the building owner might walk away. Hayes has said before that the city does not want to take over ownership of Riverview Plaza.
Hayes says entering into an escrow agreement to secure funds and guarantee repairs would be made was critical and worth the city dismissing the enforcement.
The reason it has taken so long to see repairs begin at Riverview Plaza is due to the long process of collecting insurance claims. Hayes says the $500,000 is what MJ Illinois had left over from previously settled insurance claims, but they still have others pending.
Hayes says Riverview Plaza had a significant amount of deferred maintenance when MJ Illinois took ownership of the building, but it had no control over a water main break.
Attorney Tom Leiter, who represents MJ Illinois in this case, says the total loss from the water main break is more than $2 million.
“I think the city has been reasonable throughout this process, and the agreement that’s now been made is a collaborative one. We expect it to be completed without incident, and we’re pleased with the outcome,” Leiter says.
Hayes says the ownership group has until March 1, 2026, to collect enough money and show progress on fixing the rest of the building issues.
According to Leiter, once the building is restored, his client intends to use Riverview Plaza for office purposes and add retail businesses on the first floor.
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