Well, Snarky beat me to it again.
Capitalism prevails, and the owner of Penguins over in Bettendorf is hoping to take over the Freight House for his comedy club, a restaurant, and martini bar. The best part is he also will give the city back some of the space to use for the new scaled down Farmer's Market plans.
The only downside is that he wants to pay less, considering he won't be using the whole space. I guess the City Council must decide if having an active use for the Freight House plus control over the west end of the building is worth $30,000 a year in lost lease payments. I would say yes, but I'm sure many people will say no. Hopefully a compromise can be worked out.
Here's the QCTimes article about the Freight House project. I'm sure the comments will be plenty rowdy by this afternoon.
Does anyone know what the plans are for the Builders Sand and Gravel building across the street from the Freight House and JOD? It has been sold, so I suspect we may be seeing some redevelopment there in the future too.
This has been a good week for Davenport. Since last Friday:
Several proposals were submitted for the Blackhawk Hotel.
We learned we're getting 500 new jobs.
The Freight House problem may be solved with minimal taxpayer expense.
Now if we can just get the damn casino to stay downtown.
12 comments:
Davenport Printing is moving into Builders. Great company and great service.
stop drinking your bong water, WH.
Lucky Land is correct - the taxpayers should not be responsible for any of the freight house. If there is to be a market then let private enterprise pay for it. Why is the City of Davenport even mentioned with the market? Is Davenport One determined to get money from the city to get Whitty out of his signed contract obligations?
Maybe if the casino leaves downtown more employers would consider locating jobs there.
I think if the Shricker/Ledo left downtown more employers would consider locating jobs here.
The Ledo is a needed part of good old downtown Davenport. Just because you (QCI) live in an uppity apartment complex doesn’t mean you are any better than any of us! What the hell!
Low income housing doesn't need to mean your hallways smell like urine.
I wonder if there's a computer in that entire building?
Urine in the hallways points to a landlord in need of a good shakedown. Or would a shakedown of the tenants, at city expense, be the better solution QCI.
Many of the tenants ARE probably wanted, but no, the Ledo is the landlord's fault.
QCI: I heard a rumor that JLCS was so hard up to find tenants to fill their units that they took some of the Schricker's evicted tenants.
JLCS has a long waiting list of screened tenants. Point of fact, when the manager of the Lido used to give tenants an eviction notice and sent them to The Cottage to get rent money out of JLCS ( a long time ago). Prior to providing assistance, an outreach worker visited the place and refused to provide assistance to the building, but did help get many women with children OUT of there. This was before the tragedy of the babies falling from the windows. The outreach worker found apartments with the doors taken off, broken windows, and some apartments with no heat at all. The manager of the building was selling cigarettes and booze and putting the amount against the tenants rent. If they didn't pay, the doors came off. When JLCS refused to offer tenant assistance to the building, the owner threatened to report to HUD as discrimination-JLCS told him to go for it.
Happy Christmas-be grateful for what you have today.
Did JLCS do anything to get the Lido shut down and the landlord thrown out of business? I'll wager the answer is a big fat NO. Rescuing people makes them look good; hardnosed advocacy against slumlords would be unpopular, even though in the end more people would be helped. JLCS might actually have to challenge the city instead of keep kissing its patooty to keep the money flowing.
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