Wednesday, October 08, 2008

A few good development things

Blackhawk Hotel redevelopment plan to be unveiled Wednesday -QCTimes
As I've said many times, this could be the biggest development for downtown Davenport in many, many years. Adding hotel rooms and the Gold Room onto the RiverCenter will make it more viable, and restoring the Blackhawk is important for downtown and its history. I look forward to riding in the glass elevator again someday.

Davenport Council: Taylor School, Showcase projects outlined -QCTimes
Things seem to be turning around on North Brady Street, and when 65th/67th finally connects over to Eastern, I can only imagine that area being even more successful. Maybe some of the positive changes can push into Goose Creek to help continue the slight improvement there in recent years.
Also, the Taylor School redevelopment should be good for that neighborhood, although I'd like to see the renderings of the addition.

Prairie Heights finally makes it into the newspaper!
After months of checking the Home section of the QCTimes with no mention of the QC's most innovative subdivision, PH finally makes a tiny appearance. One of the new houses in Prairie Heights is part of the QC Home Builders' Fall Harvest of Homes. Here's a bland video about it, showing a little of the developing almost-new urbanist subdivision.

Between the Blackhawk Hotel, Taylor School, the old hotel/cinemas site on North Brady, and the redevelopment of the old ShopKo/JoeVan site in Bettendorf, quite a few of the Iowa QC's ugliest or most endangered properties are being fixed up. All that during bad economic times too. The old cinema and hotel site and the old ShopKo are great examples of TIF being used for its original purpose of redeveloping blighted properties.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are all waiting for image to buy a home in prairie heights. Go for it, leader.

Anonymous said...

QCI: Did you see that Amrit and Amy Gill are strongly considering renovating the John Forrest Block?

Restoration St. Louis could be one of the best things to happen to Davenport if they decide to really commit to a number of projects here.

Anonymous said...

someone told me the River City Reader was shutting down in November, and they heard it on the news.
Nothing in QC Times or the RCR website???
Anyone know anything...

QuadCityImages said...

But then where will we get our anti-casino and pro-Ron Paul opinion columns from?

In all seriousness though, I enjoy the reader as long as I don't read their editorials, and it would be a bad thing for the QC if they shut down. I think the Dispatch/Argus Leader's switch to a similar look and "QCLeader" similar name probably couldn't have helped. One thing that makes me think its not true is that in this week's issue they seem to still be heavily recruiting interns. If I hear anything more about this I'll definitely post about it.

Anonymous said...

For you dummies it is the River Cities Reader. I realize it is too much of a mental strain for you QCI to have to think once in a while.

QuadCityImages said...

Where did I call it anything else lately?

I had it wrong months ago on my link bar, but was contacted by a Reader employee who corrected me, and I corrected it. Of course, calling people "dummies" doesn't really lend a lot of credibility to your comment anyway...

Anonymous said...

I smell Keith on here. Slamming QCI on a couple posts. (1st and 5th posts) If RCR is going bust, it's probably because of their "rah, rah" liberal diatribes in their editorials, and out & out support of the againsters of the past. I guess they should have been more objective since the only thing that keeps their presses running are their advertisers. Small business are what runs this economy, and have a much more conservative "pro business" view point. Businesses advertise with publications that reflect more of their business model, and view points.

Anonymous said...

The Reader has done themselves no favors by being anti-everything editorially for the last several years. It should come as no surprise considering who writes the political opinion pieces.

Remember when they wanted to rename the Quad-Cities "Mark Twain?" Anyway, I agree with QCI here: if the Reader would just stick to the Arts, they'd be a lot better off. They do a fine job covering music, etc.

Although, I'm still waiting for their follow-up article to the imfamous "The frIght House" cover article, which took their usual negative tone. Perhaps they're suffing from foot-in-mouth there.

God forbid we celebrate a success story. For being located downtown, and owning several properties in downtown, the Reader has oddly done themselves few favors in improving the perception of downtown's vitality.