@Mahkno : That is really steep. You can buy a whole house with more square footage for a fraction of that.

@Mahkno : The 1/2 of my story and a half of my East Bluff home has slightly more square footage than that. But then again, a lot less to dust LOL. But if I could afford 200K for that space, I probably could afford someone to do that for me.

KDG invested so much money in the area. Was there a payback for their time and money? Did their work impact the Peoria area?

@Prairiegirl : The only thing I can really speak on is the Peoria Women's Club. They were given money to help speed up the restoration of their building. They have had outside brick work done, new windows, and some other things with the $$. Hopefully, KDB doesn't want it back, put a lien on the building, sue them, or some other lame, weak-kneed, despicable, low-life thing.

WCBU has covered this story very well, it sounds like they might have lost focus on things as they seemed to have a large number of ideas and things already in the pipeline.
So the question begs. how and why did they lose that focus?
Also, at one time, wasn't there a plan for a boutique hotel in the Heights? Was that one of their original plans or was that someone else's plan?

@billybob : Yes, that was in the plans. So was building loft style apartments for which they bought out Subway and a few other businesses. Now, instead of tearing down the Subway building, rumor is that a microbrewery is going in there (which seems awfully small, but what do I know?). I know there was an article in the PJStar not too long ago about the progress (or not) of all the projects KDB Group was involved.

I don't know why but I'm feeling a Matthews De ja vu. Kinda did since his 1st major project announcement. Wasn't he also going to re-create an old amusement park on this side of the river? (Cannot remember the name of it)
Crickets on that too.

@DIANA : No comparison. I'm not aware of any city money requested or received by KDB. I do believe it was all his own money that he invested. (He did suggest that the City should build that park over I-74, but he didn't try to pressure the City into it as far as I know.)

@DIANA : Al Fresco was the name of the park. I don't think an amusement park was in the plans. It was mostly going to be green space with a couple small lakes for swimming and fishing. In it's past lives the property was an amusement park, marina and trailer park. There was a bar on the property for a long time also.

BOOM!!! SanKoty Lakes is "temporarily" closed: www.25newsnow.com/20 23/01/06/sankoty-lak es-ceases-operations -no-reopening-dTime to sneak in and do some trout fishing LOL

@AntiRanchDrssng : and "other sources tell 25 News more than 50 employees of various KDB Group properties were given notice earlier this week that their jobs were going away."What's going on here? A guy returns home with a **** ton of money, makes huge promises, several of which come to fruition, pisses off a bunch of people behind the scenes then silently leaves town. A year or so later the KDB Group shuts down all operations. Was anything producing income? What involvement did Kim Blickenstaff still have with the KDB Group? Did he cut off the money or did they burn through whatever seed money he gave them for continuing operations? And why? Why so promptly?This is going to make for a great Netflix mini drama!

Wonder is he lost a ton of money in crypto.....

@Mahkno : I thought you were joking when you originally posted this. Who gets involved with crypto? Any legit investor is just begging to be robbed in that Ponzi scheme.

@PeoriaIllinoisan : The local offices are/(were?) in the Pabst building. I wonder if they are still there/employed what happens to other businesses housed there.? At this point, if possible, I'd get away from this guy/KDB Group. I'm just glad that he gave the Peoria Women's Club money instead of buying their building like the Scottish and Betty Jayne.

@mypeez : I totally agree. However, it seems that some of the the ultra wealthy invested in it for the sake of a diversified portfolio. I am serious. A few weeks ago , I was talking to someone whose son had inherited 8 million from his grandparents. They said because of the market conditions the amount was now under 5 million.. The son is 20 years old, flunked out of college and was heavily trading in crypto . I had all I could do to keep my mouth shut and listen. The son met someone online who was looking for backing for an independent film. Have no idea what was decided there. Also, in recent weeks there are stories of ultra wealthy having lost in foreign currency trading. Specifically, it seems, the exchange rate between the Euro, Pound Sterling, USD and Argentine Peso. They never, ever believed that the Euro and USD would be worth just about the same. I really, really do wonder if that could also be the case of KDG too.In recent weeks, in some places, some other projects , CA included, have crashed and burned, shall we say, because of the crypto currency situation and foreign currency trading losses. So, I have no choice but to think that COULD be an issue in this case too.