Urban living on a roll in the Q-C
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By Alma Gaul | Monday, November 06, 2006 |
Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES A former warehouse on Davenport’s West 4th Street is expected to open in early December as apartments. The work is a project of The Alexander Company, Madison, Wis.
Photos by Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES Mike Thacker, foreman for Allied Construction of Bettendorf, works in a fifth-floor apartment.
Apartments on the building’s second floor will feature a balcony overlooking a courtyard.
Ron Hartman graduated from the old Moline High School in 1954, and now he’s ready to go back — as a resident.
The school on 16th Street is being refurbished into 60 apartments, and Hartman, 71, will be among the first tenants, who hope to move in later this month.
The Old Moline High School Loft Apartments represent the latest among at least 350 new living spaces that have been created in the past five years in or near the core downtowns of Davenport, Rock Island and Moline.
And more are in the works.
In Davenport, developers of the former Roederer Transfer and Storage building, 320-324 E. 4th St., will have the first of 53 apartments ready for occupancy by Dec. 3, and developers of the Mississippi Hotel, 136 E. 3rd St., will have the first of 56 apartments available to tenants by Feb. 1.
A St. Paul, Minn.-company plans to rehabilitate the old Salvation Army building on West River Drive into 42 loft-style apartments by sometime in 2008 if financing can be arranged, said Randy Schold of MetroPlains Development.
In Rock Island, where about 150 downtown apartments and condominiums have been created in the past five years, developer Jeff Guthrie hopes to begin construction early next year on eight townhomes on 3rd Avenue that would be targeted toward artists, with living space above and studio/store space below. The project to be known as DuMarche Market will be new construction, not rehabilitation of existing buildings.
If those sell well, Guthrie would like to develop a total of 20 units within a three-block area, some new and some rehab.
The downtown living spaces represent a trend that civic leaders have long dreamed about and one they hope continues as a means of revitalizing old core areas.
“I’m very excited about the development and the people moving back into the downtown,” Davenport Mayor Ed Winborn said. “I think it’s exactly what we need.”
Concerns
But there are some concerns — about saturation, about a concentration of housing targeted at people with restricted incomes and of momentum stalling out.
Brian Hollenback, executive director of the nonprofit Rock Island Economic Growth Corp., said he feels comfortable for two reasons.
First, his agency, which aggressively spearheaded much of the work in downtown Rock Island, is seeing a lot of demand for market-rate housing. That means people who could afford to live elsewhere are choosing to live downtown, and a mix of market-rate and income-restricted housing tends to keep areas buoyant, he said.
Second, the projects that have been completed are not individually large. “They are 25, 33 units at a time, and that’s why we can keep a handle on things,” he said, adding that the supply and demand stay in sync.
Like Hollenback, Tara Barney, senior vice president at DavenportOne, said she is at ease with the supply and the current mix of market-rate and restricted-income apartments in Davenport. “It is important that they come online at a staged pace,” she said of the new housing units.
Rock Island Mayor Mark Schwiebert lauds the mix of income levels and backgrounds the developments have attracted.
“I think the future of urban living is people of different income levels and different backgrounds living next to each other,” he said. “It creates a more interesting place in which to live, and that, in turn, attracts more young people.”
He also is happy that spaces which have been empty for as long as 20 or 30 years are being put to good use, and while he hopes the redevelopment continues, the core of Rock Island is beginning to run out of larger available spaces, the mayor said.
While two- and three-unit projects will keep happening, the next big emphasis will be east of the downtown in the former Farmall plant area and to the west in the New Old Chicago neighborhood, he said. A lot of that likely will be new construction in cleared areas rather than redevelopment of existing buildings.
David Vos, project manager for the company that developed the Crescent Macaroni Co. and the Waterloo Works housing in Davenport, is concerned about the future of tax credits, a financing tool that has helped make his company’s projects economically feasible.
In addition to the projects The Alexander Companies, based in Madison, Wis., has already completed or has under way, the firm owns a building at 500 Iowa St. it hopes to convert into 36 apartments.
But “we’re waiting for the state historic tax credits to be stabilized, to be funded (by the Iowa Legislature) to an adequate level so people can rely on them,” Vos said. “For now, the project is on hold until legislation is passed.”
Because of that, the company’s plans to build 12 owner-occupied condominiums in a building it owns at 315 E. 5th St. also are on hold.
Finally, there has been no progress on plans to impart a friendlier feel to the rusting Iowa Interstate Railroad bridge that slices diagonally across 4th Street at Pershing Avenue, creating a visual barrier between the downtown and the warehouse area where apartments have been developed.
The Alexander Companies would like to paint and light the bridge so it would be a welcoming gateway, and the firm has applied through DavenportOne for a $1 million federal Economic Development Initiate grant to do so. The money also would pay for several smaller streetscape projects that would “soften” the landscape and provide lighting for safety purposes, Vos added.
But “money has tightened up because of (Hurricane) Katrina,” he said. “We will try again next year.”
Completing the buildings at 500 Iowa and 315 E. 5th and improving the bridge are important because “we wanted people to feel like they were part of a revitalized neighborhood, not a half-completed project,” he added. If the projects are not completed, “it will become more of a challenge to keep people interested in living there,” he said.
“Right now, people moving in have a sense of excitement. But the next couple of years are important for the long-term viability of the project.”
Who are these people?
Rock Island’s Hollenback says most of the people moving into the downtown fall into two main groups: young people ages 25 to 35 and empty nesters and singles who are 50 years and older. But Stang of the Davenport Lofts says her tenants are so diverse she can’t put them in specific categories.
At age 71, the retired Hartman, who is moving into the Old Moline High School Lofts fits in the “50-and-above” category.
Not fitting either category is Sue Fillmer, 48, a substitute custodian for the Moline School District. She expects to move into one of the two-story, three-bedroom units with her daughter, 14, and son, 20. Fillmer has lived in apartments all her life, but she wanted out of the Carbon Cliff, Ill., complex where she has lived the past five years.
She saw the Moline lofts on the Internet, went to see a model and “fell in love with it.”
That, apparently, is the common denominator.
Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com.
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