Current Song - Couldn't Get it Right (Climax Blues Band)
The picture above is from the 1950s. The main drag to the left is Locust Street, and the one to the right is First Avenue. It's easy to point out the buildings that are not standing anymore, if you're from the area. Looks a lot different, huh? (Click the picture to expand it)
Way back in September, I wrote an entry about what I think would be a good idea for the Propsed Rock Falls Riverfront. I never got around to thinking about what to do with Sterling's.
In Friday's edition of the Gazette there was an article about talk of what to do with Sterling's side.
I haven't read the entire preliminary plan (which may end up being more of a preliminary preliminary preliminary preliminary plan), so here are a few things I'd like to thow out there. All of this is simply imagination - with no real thinking behind it. So yeah, perhaps none of this could possibly happen. Note that my ideas extend outside the boundaries in the study. I will later clarify my ideas to reflect that of the study boundaries. But for now, this is more of a long-term solution.
1. Tear down the entire Lawrence Brothers complex, EXCEPT the large brick smokestack. Use that as a permanant reminder of what the building used to be, and make it a part of a series of plaques regarding manufacturing in Sterling. (This will be called the "old Lawrence property" in future reference.)
2. Save the concrete railroad bridge wall from the old CB&Q (the railroad was taken out in the early 1980s). Use this as a bench, shelter or gazebo area. Put another plaque there regarding the history of that railroad.
3. Tear down the entire Bogott complex. Just saying. It is an eyesore. Nothing to save here.
4. Build an underpass so that the East side of Wallace Street (a two-lane road)connects with 4th Avenue. Make East Wallace Street an uphill-downhill road with the peak being at the halfway point between the two underpasses. At peak, build a small parking lot. The rest of the Lawrence property converts to parkland. At night, this should give a good view of a completed Rock Falls riverfront.
5. There's going to have to be a floodwall of some sort between the First Avenue Bridge and the old CB&Q wall. The current building acts as a riverwall. When tearing down the building, retain the wall.
6. Sterling has always considered moving out of the Coliseum. Build a new, larger, City Hall complex on the old Bogott property. Also put up a Bogott plaque there.
7. The Coliseum is still kept intact. What's bothering it is the constant cramming of space by the city. Sterling/Rock Falls Historical Society moves into it (or back into it, this having been the original home until moved to the Dillon Grounds). The Coliseum arena itself is still used for it usual events, or perhaps renovated to create more space.
8. Fill current empty downtown space before building new structures for business. This will prevent the downtown area from crumbling due to this newer plan.
Empty downtown space currently includes:
*Old Haskell's/Detweiler's Train building
*Old King's Den/Abiding Word
*Old Hart's Jewelry
*Old Herbal Essences/record store (can't remember the name)
*Old telephone building
*Theatre
*Old Bohse carpet complex
*Raynor
(Not sure what is taking up the upper levels of the Lawrence Building where the Court is, also not sure about the old "One-Eighty" club)
The city's youth has been yearning for an arcade since the one at the mall closed years ago. Put one somewhere. Something like Peoria's "inPlay".
9. Currently Second Avenue is a boulevard from 4th Street down. After 2nd Street, divide it up into smaller, one-way drives in a oval pattern. Tree up the area heavily. As to what to put in the middle of it, how about a fountain? Tear down the old gas station/tatoo parlor to make room.
10. Keep the Plainwell building (old Kroger's). Just tidy up the rear.
11. Fix up the stairway along First Avenue.
12. Build a pedestrian bridge over the railroad (curled ramps on both sides, and design it to look appealing). Connect this path with the path along the riverwall.
13. Any planned pedestrian walkway with the new First Avenue bridge should connect with the old Lawrence Property, with a smaller sidewalk merging out toward the First-Wallace intersection.
14. Likewise, build an arching ped bridge over First Avenue to lead out to the railroad spare line right in front of the old National building. This will lead to a complicated stoplight arrangement, but more warning on both ends in the form of a stoplight traffic sign with amber lights should do it.
15. Call the new First Avenue Bridge the "Sterling-Rock Falls Manufacturing Worker's Bridge" - in tribute to all of the people that have worked at Reliant, Eureka, Parrish-Alford, NWSW, National and Lawrence Brothers all these years.
16. There isn't too much space between the railroad tracks and the river between Fourth Avenue and Eighth Avenue, but an extension of the riverwalk would suffice. There is plenty of space between track and river from Eighth Avenue to Martin's Landing.
(Now we cross First Avenue)
17. It seems like a popular entry to the equation is putting a hotel somewhere. However, how do you put a hotel next to train tracks, especially when trains are going to move at 60 miles per hour and toot their whistles? Same thing with performing arts. Don't we already have performing arts centers?
18. Keep National's smokestack. Same idea as #1.
19. High-rise condos in the closest two buildings of the National Complex. Tear the middle building down, and that blue building also. (I'm not sure of the status, but if the stucco wall on the NE building is nothing more than a dummy wall, then take it down to reveal the bricks). The Benson-Bittorf, or the Bittorf-Benson.
20. The western-most big building of the National Complex is too large to tear down, but does make for a good office building once the industrial stuff is removed.
21. Replace the middle National building with a dual parking garage, for both ideas above.
22. Have that winding river walkway weave through either side of the parking garage, joining the river wall in front of the office building in #20.
23. Paint the river wall white. It currently has a lot of mildew on it.
24. Green the entire length of the space between the railroad and Wallace along the old National Complex. Meaning the shortline rail is removed.
25. Green the old parking lot where the old C-NW train station used to be.
26. Tear down the larger half of the northern National building (the one on the other side of the tracks), as well as the Produce building and the green-colored buildings at the end of Avenue A and put in a convention center. Parking for the center is across Avenue A on the south side of 2nd Street.
27. Clean up the back of the Masonic building, and the one attached to it. Make it look LESS like the Led Zeppelin album cover.
28. Convert the Bohse flooring building to apartments. Boulevard 2nd Street from avenues C to the Chamber building and make the upper alley level the parking lot for these apartments.
29. Rename West Second Street to Depot Blvd.
30. Leave the Union Pacific building up.
(Now we're past National, and onto the biggest void of them all)
31. Extend Avenues A and C past the tracks (at-grade crossings) and connect them south of Wallace with an extension of Avenue B - which extends further to connect with Bass Street (wait, where?).
32. SSC can have their parking lot, and their easternmost property, which ends at Bass Street But the land bounded east of the Avenue G bridge, north of the SSC property, south of the tracks and west of Bass Street needs to be completely removed.
33. Wallace Street curves right and climbs up to create an at-grade bridge intersection with Avenue G. This will create a western gateway to the new redeveloped area between G and Pike Street. This redeveloped area will be called Miller's Row (Miller Street got it's name from the old Sterling Distillery located there - and at one time was the second-largest one in the USA)
34. Miller Street is rerouted just a little north of its current path, from Bass Street going west to a curve-up to Wallace.
35. Pike Street and Avenue E connect, with an at-grade rail crossing.
36. THE PARK -
East: West End of National Complex
South: River
North: Where Avenue C curves around to meet Avenue A, and then Bass Street and its extension.
37. Something has to be put in place in order to transition the image from SSC to the park between these two.
NEXT UP - The plans using the actual study boundaries this time.
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