Last month, members of the Twin Towers Place Condominium Community held a dedication for a new sign in front of the complex at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Fulton Street in downtown Peoria. The granite sign recognizes the late Ray Becker as the “Visionary and Developer” behind the two 30-story buildings.
Becker, a Peoria native and well-known area businessman, was renowned for developing the Twin Towers in the 1980s. At 308 feet tall, they are the tallest buildings in the River City with a total of 120 condominium units and more than 200 residents. Becker himself lived in the East Tower for decades before he passed away on May 7, 2020, at the age of 89.
As president and CEO of The Becker Companies, Becker built homes, condominiums, hotels, warehouses, churches, schools, prisons, office buildings, shopping centers, nursing homes and more. A 1949 graduate of Woodruff High School, he remade the entire city of Peoria, from sprawling subdivisions on the outskirts of town to the towering buildings in its downtown core. “Whatever happens, they’re going to know I was here,” he once remarked while admiring the two towers that reinvented Peoria’s skyline. Truer words were never spoken. PM
