California-based entrepreneur Kim Blickenstaff is busy working on a number of construction projects in the Peoria area.
Now, he wants to revamp what was once the Al Fresco Amusement Park along the Peoria Heights riverfront off of Galena Road.
The park featured a roller coaster, Ferris Wheel, Japanese garden and a movie house that attracted thousands of people to the Heights starting in 1906, reaching its heyday in the Roaring ’20s before closing up near the end of World War II.
The property, which is now mostly under water, is just south of the Illinois Valley Yacht Club. The narrow strip that is still visible is where Blickenstaff plans to build the new Al Fresco Park.
Blickenstaff tells WMBD’s Greg and Dan, he was intrigued by memories that his mother shared of the place.
“She lived over on Wisconsin, born and raised by Glen Oak Park. They used to take the trolly out to it. The railroad tracks there went by Al Fresco Park.”
Blickenstaff said plans for the new Al Fresco Park include the construction of two spring-fed lakes.
“What we’re going to do is, we’re actually going to put a berm in, to create separation from the river. Clean out all the silt that’s in there. And, then just pop down into the Sankoty Aquifer, and it will be blue spring water that comes up,” Blickenstaff said.
“There’ll be swimming, and in the winter there’ll be hopefully ice skating. So, it’ll be kind of a nature area for kids from the inner city to come out and not have to go across the river, to fish and hike and that sort of thing.”
Blickenstaff plans to bring a carnival and floating restaurants on the water to the park in the summertime. He also intends to create a special wildlife habitat-for river otters, fish and birds.
1470 100.3 WMBD/Julia Bradley
The property will be elevated to put it above a 100-year flood stage. Plans include building a bridge over the highway linking Al Fresco Park trails nearby.
The impetus, in part, for the project was the recent announcement of a $68.5 million grant through the state’s capital construction bill to widen and upgrade Galena Road between the McClugage Bridge and Gardner Lane.
The Peoria Heights Village Board Tuesday night agreed to move forward on a long-term lease arrangement with Blickenstaff on the village-owned property.
The Al Fresco Park project will also require the cooperation of multiple government agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and various local governments.
