Riverfront armory might become an amphitheater

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By Dustin Lemmon | Wednesday, January 17, 2007 11:34 AM CST | () comments

Rock Island could turn its old riverfront armory into an amphitheater or other open space while still maintaining some of the existing walls, but the city needs the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency to approve such a project.

City leaders decided last week to draw up new designs for the site after reviewing a recent letter from the agency, which suggested an amphitheater or similar renovation.

Rock Island Mayor Mark Schwiebert said the city’s design company, Schreiber Anderson Associates of Madison, Wis., is putting together new plans that would keep some of the armory’s walls while taking off the roof. He hopes to present their results to representatives from the IHPA in 30 to 60 days and invite them to Rock Island to visit the site.

Schwiebert said the city would like to construct a green space on top of the levy once the Casino Rock Island moves to its new location by Interstate 280. He said the project would restore what the city’s riverfront looked like in the 1960s while maintaining the city’s flood wall, but any renovation must meet state requirements for preserving historic structures.

“It retains some sense of what the armory used to look like,” Schwiebert said of the plan.

The three-story building, which dominates the Rock Island riverfront, is 232 feet long, 148 feet wide and 65 feet high with a total area of about 80,000 square feet.

“It’s right smack dab in the middle of our riverfront,” Schwiebert said.

Alan Carmen, Rock Island’s planning and redevelopment administrator, said that when the city purchased the armory from the state in the 1990s, it inherited a deed that gave IHPA final authority on any changes to the building’s interior and exterior. The building, which was built in 1937, housed the Illinois National Guard until 1996.

“What we had hoped was for the state to say we have local authority to make the decision, but they didn’t do that,” Carmen said.

Rock Island has already discussed other possible uses for the building, including commercial and residential, but IHPA initially would not allow some alterations to the roof and windows, and the addition of balconies. Eventually, those plans fell through.

“It seems like the building is too big for some purposes and too small for others,” Schwiebert said. “It kind of falls between the cracks. It’s not an easily reusable space.”

Carmen thinks IHPA changed its mind after seeing how hard the city worked to find alternative uses for the building.

“I think they recognize we went through an extensive process trying to find developers that were interested,” he said.

If the city does build an amphitheater, it will be careful not to create a structure that competes with the bandshell in LeClaire Park, Carmen said. He noted that the RiverVision plan between Rock Island and Davenport calls for the two cities to work together to draw people to the riverfront.

“We’re making sure we’re not stepping on each other’s toes,” he said. “We’ll be looking at design options that are complementary to things that already exist.”

Carmen said the north wall of the armory is part of the flood wall and needs to remain standing.

Construction on the new Casino Rock Island is scheduled to start this spring. Carmen said the project will take two years to complete and the city won’t be able to do anything with the river front until the boat moves in 2009.

Officials with IHPA could not be reached for comment.

Dustin Lemmon can be contacted at (563) 383-2493 or dlemmon@qctimes.com.

ARMORY’S HISTORY

The armory was dedicated Nov. 11, 1937, and housed the Illinois National Guard until 1996 when it moved to a modern facility near the Quad-City International Airport in Moline. The armory is a three-story, steel-reinforced concrete structure covering about 80,000 square feet. It includes a full basement accessible by vehicles and a drill hall that can seat 5,000 people.