For those of you who don't normally read the River Cities' Reader, check out the article on the Freight House controversy in this week's issue.
Its remarkably fair and unbiased, especially considering the Reader's editorial take on things down at City Hall. Mr. Ignatius has quotes from users of the current farmer's market, who don't yet understand that this won't be replacing the current market, just adding to it. I especially like how he tries to explain that the main goal is not the public market idea as much as the surrounding development that would be based on the public market.
As I've said before, its just a different kind of incentive. I've tried to explain that the Freight House itself is just something that housing developers can use to attract the the kind of people who drool over things like the City Market in Kansas City. When folks start moving in down there so they can walk across the street and buy art, crafts, bean sprouts or whatever, more buildings will be renovated into apartments. When more residents appear, more commerce follows. Pretty soon we have two emerging residential areas downtown instead of just the Crescent District. I just wish we could get some kind of guarantee of new surrounding development before spending money on the Freight House.
8 comments:
the problem qci is that Davenport one and others in the city don't keep their promises - you can't trust people who don't keep promises.
I am wondering what the last poster means by D1 and other don't keep their promises. At this point it looks like every thing that the community wanted downtown is happening or has already happened. This is thanks to D1 and some aldermen and alderladies that were visionaries.
Lets hope that the group of 5 againsters we have now don't squash the progress we have seen in the past few years.
Well, they probably are referring to the fact that not many of the public projects are doing all that well. However, I don't think that the Figge, RME, etc were the goals themselves, but catalyst for secondary projects such as the CityView, MidwestOne Bank, Bucktown, etc. In that case, its definitely working.
I don't actually know how well the Figge is doing, and it seems busy whenever I'm in or near it, but who knows. And hopefully the 3rd version is the charm for the RME.
The real deal with the Freight House (as a market) involves moving respectable people into the central city.
If cool things develop downtown, respectable folks will move there. If educated, informed, working people move downtown, the status que changes. Here are some examples:
1) Keith Meyer is toast. Informed, educated folks know he is a protest vote.
2) New people will force the clean up of the central city. The bottom dwellers of society don't like that.
3) More gangbanger types are displaced...
4) The brain drain of Davenport will slow....
If Davenport is going to have half a chance of moving into the 21st century we need to do something...
To me this is as good a thing as any I have heard...
QCI you are totally wet behind the ears! CityView, BUcktown and Midwest whatever weren't even twinkles when River Ren. started. Where do you come up with this new justification for River Ren? Of course the projects were meant to succeed -- on their own, and to draw tourists. Period. You must be on the Bush-Rumsfeld team and working on v. 6.0 for why we went to war in Irag.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I am not saying the exact projects were known about back when River Renaissance was being voted on, just that secondary development was one of the main goals.
QCI don't even try to argue with an againster, they know everything and are against anything that makes this a forward thinking city!! One good thing is that the againsters are spending alot of time at the new downtown developments, because they always seem to have a running total of how many people are downtown at any given time.
D1, the RME and Figge have had ample opportunity to lay out supportable facts about their finances and job creation and the number of visitors coming to those facilities. They have failed to do it.
Just curious, the RME reported they get about $300,000 a year in contributions and less than $50,000 is generated through memberships. What's the difference between a contribution and a membership? Who's contributing?
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