Bluff again to go boom as dorm to be imploded

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By Barb Ickes | Saturday, February 10, 2007 10:57 AM CST | () comments

(John Schultz/QUAD-CITY TIMES) The former Moline Hospital site on the left side of 6th Street is now a small housing development. The old nursing building, at right, will be destroyed.

According to developer Mike Shamsie, the new plan for the second phase of One Moline Place is for a type of gated community of housing that involves 75 units. The first phase of construction, which includes property east of 6th street, contains 55 units.

The bluff in Moline is going to get one more explosion.

Mike Shamsie, the developer of the former Moline Public and Lutheran Hospitals on the 6th Street hill is changing his plans for the old nursing school dormitory and now plans to implode the structure.

He formerly had planned to renovate the multi-story building for use as a senior living center. When estimates for the makeover came in about $6 million, Shamsie realized he would have to ask more than $100,000 per unit and that was too much.

“Structurally it’s sound,” he said of the dorm, which was built into the hillside on the west side of 6th Street. “But it’s a pretty good-sized project, and we’re not sure the market’s there.

“It’s definitely coming down.”

He estimates it will cost $200,000 to demolish the building and have the crumbled concrete hauled away. He said he plans to use the same demolition company that imploded the former Lutheran Hospital in November 1998, and the Moline Public Hospital in October 2002.

Several bystanders,

including a Times reporter, sustained minor injuries in the second blast.

The new plan for the second phase of development at the site dubbed One Moline Place is for a gated community-type of housing that consists of 75 units. The first phase of construction, which includes the property east of 6th Street, contains 55 units.

So far, 15 units have been built, including six single-family homes and six cottages. Though nearly all of the lots in the first phase have been sold, Shamsie said, the project has hit a number of costly setbacks.

In fact, the City of Moline will receive a considerable percentage of the proceeds from lot sales in the second phase, he said.

“As soon as I start selling them, I’ve got the city in for 25 percent of the proceeds,” he said. “I plan on paying them what I owe.”

What he owes to date is about $700,000 in interest payments on $2.4 million in bonds the city issued for infrastructure improvements at One Moline Place. Shamsie agreed to pay the interest and principal on those bonds if the project did not generate enough new property tax revenue to cover the debt service.

The principal on the bonds comes due this year at a rate of $240,000 annually.

“Once the project is up and running, it’ll generate about twice what’s needed in debt service,” city finance director Kathy Carr said Friday. “It’s just cash-flow timing.

“Hopefully, as the development continues, the new taxes will cover it, but it’s not likely he’ll (Shamsie) be able to pay this year or even next year.

“He does have to pay it back. We’re just not pursuing it right now because it would kill the project. I’m confident we’ll be paid back.”

Shamsie said he looks forward to paying the debt and said his figures show the entire project will bring the city more than $600,000 in new taxes annually.

For now, though, he is focused on the dormitory.

According to a detailed three-page project schedule that goes into the spring of 2008, the dormitory is to be demolished May 18 of this year. After the wreckage is hauled away and the site is prepared for construction, new roads are to be built west of 6th Street, beginning in the spring of 2008.

Before anything can be done at the site, Shamsie’s plans must meet the city council’s approval and are contingent upon financing.

“My bank’s with me in this project for the long-run,” he said. “They know these developments take time, but we’ve got a really good plan right now.”

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.