PEORIA — With family members of the original buildings’ owner looking on, a Peoria developer announced plans Thursday for turning the Grawey Building into residential and business space, with the potential for outdoor dining.
The facility at 825 SW Adams Street, which spans several addresses on either side, dates back to early last century.
“I want to bring that rich history and beauty … back,” Casey Baldovin said of the project, which he hopes to have some businesses operating at by as soon as this fall.
William F. Grawey started the building and gradually added onto it; at one point it even had a bowling alley on its second floor. But the spaces have fallen into disuse over the years.
“Having seen it deteriorate all these years, it’s good to be able to watch it come back,” said Jeanne Barclay, one of more than a dozen Grawey relatives who attended the announcement ceremony. “Our grandfather would be very proud and happy.”
Baldovin has worked with family members to obtain old photos of the building for use. He also hopes to display old plans from the building, which grew and expanded over the years.
The first floor spaces would be reserved for businesses or restaurants, with upper-level spaces set for studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments and rooftop amenities.
But Baldovin also hopes to close off the nearby alleyway to make it walkable, and establish space for up to five small restaurateurs to operate — particularly those starting out who are looking for a small footprint and low overhead to “get their feet under them and start operating.”
Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis described it as “almost an incubator for small restaurants.”
The project is the second for Baldovin in the area. This one, dubbed “The Center” is across the street from the former Federal Warehouse and Wilson Fabrics, which he is developing as Adams and Oak. To the four Peoria City Council members in attendance, Baldovin suggested several times — to genial laughter — that he’d be asking the council for the OK to string lights between the buildings and perhaps close the street between them on occasion for events.
The market for both Baldovin developments is designed to attract interest from young professionals and encouraging them to stay in the region, he said, with businesses designed to keep people shopping locally.
He said he hoped to begin work in the spaces by May or June, and described the Grawey project at “easier” to renovate, with most of the storefront space having existing buildouts that need less tweaking.
With fall his goal for opening some commercial space — particularly the restaurants, where tenants could be announced within a few months — Baldovin said he hoped the first residential spaces in the two-phase project would be available by spring 2021.
Rent and other costs, Baldovin said, would be competitive with others in the area, though he declined to cite specific figures.
Baldovin said he saw his work in the neighborhood to be about more than just creating spaces for dwelling and shopping, though.
“Sustainability isn’t just having people buy goods here every day. It’s jobs,” he said, stressing the importance of having places where 50 to 100 people could be working.
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