PEORIA, Ill.-- Now that its highly anticipated opening weekend is in the books, directors of the Peoria Riverfront Museum are doing their best to keep foot traffic flowing.
While the museum and its next door neighbor, the Caterpillar Visitors Center, are complete, the neighborhood surrounding it is not.
Construction on much of Washington Street and the city's Warehouse District is ongoing.
City leaders have promised, once that work is complete, the area will be much more pedestrian-friendly.
But they admit the timing is not ideal.
"With the timing of how everything happened, with the grant money that we got from the TIGER money and some of the state money, it's lagging a little bit behind," said Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis, "but that is why we did that Washington block, while we had the area in front of the museum. We got all that done on that side."
Funding for much of the Warehouse District project comes from $10 million in Federal TIGER II grants, as well as an anticipated $9.4 million from the state.
Work is expected to be completed in 2014.
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