Riverfront’s ugly duck ready to become a swan

ROCK FALLS – The building, empty now for 14 years and skinned of its brick facade, sits on the corner of First Avenue and East Second Street, in the heart of downtown Rock Falls, presiding over the second-busiest intersection in Whiteside County.

It’s an eyesore, sure enough, and has been for several years.

But it’s also a stone’s throw away from the burgeoning downtown Rock Falls riverfront, an area rife for redevelopment, with a relatively new hotel nearby and another one about to be built, a new banquet and event center, and the RB&W park, with its newly roofed outdoor amphitheater and sculpture walk.

Its owners, attorneys Louis Pignatelli junior and senior, talk excitedly about the 14,000-square-foot building’s potential, and about the economic boost that new jobs and foot traffic will bring to the downtown.

They envision multiple restaurants or other hospitality venues on the lower floor and on the rooftop, which would provide a view of the river, with a second floor buzzing with “Class A medical/professional/office space,” utilizing the city’s gigabit technology.

The building, which they have dubbed “The Riverfront,” is old, but it’s “sturdy.”

“It has good bones,” Lou Sr. said.

Those bones are in a good location, too.

The riverfront area “is projected to be the most developed area in the county for the next decades,” the building’s LoopNet.com listing extols.

The Pignatellis have been actively looking for investors for several years, for businesses that share their vision, to lease and help them rebuild.

In fact, they had a nationally known company all lined up, then COVID hit and the deal stalled, the men said in a recent interview.

They hope to revive those talks, and are working “pretty aggressively” to market the space.

“We’re still talking with a couple of national brokers,” Lou Jr. said. “It’s a tough time for retail, but we have a lot of interest from different parties.”

They are working with the Rock Falls Development Corp. and city officials, too, he said.

“It’s a great opportunity for Rock Falls to bring the right kind of commerce to the best space in the Sauk Valley.”

They plan an extensive remodel, but that’s not practical until they know who their tenants are going to be, and what their needs are.

They don’t want a design that’s “slipshod or haphazard – we want it to set the tone, to be the cornerstone for the Rock Falls development,” the younger Pignatelli said.

In the meantime, they are regularly cited for code violations, and dutifully pay the fines, Rock Falls building inspector Mark Searing said.

The building’s appearance suffered when the facade was removed in June 2018, when it appeared some of the bricks started crumbling away. So far, the city has not imposed a deadline on repairs, preferring to be patient in the hopes that the site can be made viable.

There’s no danger to the public, Searing said. “It’s more of an eyesore than a safety issue.”

Still, complaints are many, he said.

“We get hammered on that thing constantly.”

The Pignatellis do, too. They are as eager as anyone else to get going, they said, and they want to do right by their hometown.

All they need are tenants, local or national, Lou Jr. said.

“It’s a big investment at a very difficult time time in a very uncertain market at a very unusual time in American life. But when we find somebody seriously interested, there is nothing holding us back.

‘When we get that next chance, we’re going to be ready ... it’s time to make something happen for Rock Falls.”

A brief history of 201 First Ave.

The 110-year-old building, which started life as a Masonic hall, has been empty since 2007, when, after 6 years leasing the space, Sauk Valley Bank moved its branch office to 904 First Ave.

The building, in fact, has a long history of housing banks. In 1962, Rock Falls Savings and Loan Association moved in, and stayed there for many years. In 1988, the bank underwent a name change and was known as River Valley Savings Bank; it closed in 1995.