You won’t see any visible work begin on the West Theater or Park Plaza until at least March 2019.
But that doesn’t mean that Director of Planning and Public Works Wayne Carl and the city aren’t busy preparing.
Carl tells WGIL that bids for both the Park Plaza renovation and the theater demolition should go out in the next few weeks.
The West was bought by the Galesburg Downtown Council for $13,000 and donated to the city so it could be brought down and the space could be incorporated into the new layout.
Where the theater stands now will have some elements of the new plaza, including public restrooms, landscaping and some parking.
Carl says that the area where the theater stands is where certain elements of the plaza renovation will be incorporated, like public bathrooms, landscaping and some parking.
Even though bricks won’t be moving en masse until next year, this winter crews will do interior work on the West to prepare for it to come down, things like asbestos removal.
While nearby Parking Lot E will lose some spaces in some stages of the work, Carl says that no more than half the spaces will be out of commission at any one time.
The building that’s west of the Plaza as a bowing wall, but Carl says the building has new owners who are planning to fix that, hopefully in February or March.
Carl says the city will only have some adjacent concrete sidewalk work to do.
