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Builder's Sand and Cement Co. set to leave Davenport riverfront

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By Tory Brecht | Thursday, October 25, 2007 4:06 AM CDT | () comments

One long-time business will exit the Mississippi riverfront this winter around the same time another moves into a long-vacant building a little farther downriver.

Builders Sand and Cement Co. will cease operations in about two weeks and will spend the next five months razing its buildings, clearing its piles of sand and other material and otherwise cleaning up the 3.25 acres it has leased on River Drive since the 1930s. The company has moved its operations to the former Payless Cashways site on West River Drive.

“We have some items we want to remove, and we don’t want to give you back something that looks awful,” Wayne Lawson, the company’s vice president of operations, told members of the Davenport Levee Improvement Commission on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the grand opening of Penguins Comedy Club in the old Freight House building on the south side of River Drive near John O’Donnell Stadium is scheduled for Dec. 7, club owner Jeff Johnson said.

Johnson, who plans to invest $750,000 in the building that has sat vacant for more than three years, said the comedy club will open first, followed by a sports bar in mid-January and a restaurant and martini bar at the beginning of March.

“Demolition is going on now, and work is going full-speed ahead,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be vibrant, and it’s going to look very nice.”

Meanwhile, the city has been meeting some of its obligations under the terms of the lease, including much-needed tree trimming, landscaping and repair of the deck on the south side of the building.

Under the agreement, Johnson will lease back the western one-third of the building to the city, including the patio area, for use as part of an expanded farmers market.

Steve Ahrens, development director for the levee commission, said the city’s budget calls for $52,000 in landscaping and south deck improvements. A second, more ambitious project — streetscaping along River Drive, painting an old freight car and redoing the brick sidewalk — is estimated at $250,000 and will have to get approval from the City Council.

The commission voted on a pair of technicalities to move the projects forward Wednesday.

First, commission members agreed to give Builders through April to clean up its site before handing it back to the city. For the additional five months, the company will pay 75 percent of its $8,700 monthly rent.

“Builders has really worked hard to do what they needed to do and have made serious efforts to move on the timeline we gave them,” commissioner Kelli Grubbs said, adding that a 25 percent reduction in rent seemed reasonable because the company wouldn’t be operating on the site.

Several commissioners noted that Builders has been much more amenable to moving than nearby leaseholder River/Gulf Grain. That company is now paying 5 percent more on its monthly rent because of its lack of progress on moving.

In January, the commission granted the company a two-year extension to stay on River Drive, despite reluctance and misgivings of some commissioners who pointed out River/Gulf already had five years to find a new location.

Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com.