Davenport may kill Menards 'dark store' deal to spark construction -QCTimes
As someone mentioned in the comments earlier, the council is considering changing their mind. Shawn "Property Rights, sometimes" Hamerlinck helped pass a set of requirements having to do with the current Menards in order to rezone their future site near the intersection of Brady and 65th. At the time, there were a number of potential businesses going in out in that area, and the economy was humming right along. Now, a couple years later, things are a bit different. It appears that much of the council is willing to have an empty Menards on 53rd in exchange for a larger Menards spurring development in a new corridor and providing construction jobs. I don't know that they're wrong, but I do worry about the old Menards sitting empty for a long, long time. I can think of one possible use, but I'll do a post on that later.
Deal with city, schools creates a short-term boost for Putnam -QCTimes
This one gets pretty complicated, but the end result is the Parks and Rec department moving out of the old Davenport Museum of Art building, the Putnam giving up their claim to the building, and the Davenport Community School District preschool program moving into it from the former Eagles near the Fairgrounds. Having a school as part of the "museum campus" makes perfect sense, and in an ideal world the Putnam board can bring in some new tenants to their buildings downtown before using up the 3 year influx of money. We'll see. My main concern is with the Putnam in the future. If they do manage to turn things around and somehow have plenty of money again, where are they ever able to expand to in the future? They had always hoped to be able to expand into the former DMA building, but never had the cash. With this deal, that option goes away. I always hate to see the QC sell the future short during present difficulties. It does explain the sudden interest in the Parks department moving into the River's Edge (QCSC) building on the riverfront though. I wonder where the Community Services Division will go?
5 comments:
The current council seem to intersted in the construction jobs over an empty building. We shall see how long it is vacant.
Nitrous55
Here is the deal on the dary store agreement, because the council obviously looked at the 2000-2004 council that inacted the dark store agreement for the old Wal-Mart. That agreement required the market the property once vacant (not leave empty, as some Wal-Marts were) and an agreement that they couldn't appeal their assessed value based on the premise the store was dark/empty. Thats it, and I don't see why Menards couldn't agree to something that simple!
OH YA, Ambrose for House! Lets work hard to get Tony out of city hall
I also am confused by the QCTimes claims that Menards "can't" move until they've found a use for the old store. That is very different than the QCTimes and blog articles published at the time the agreement was being hashed out.
I've emailed Craig about it, and hopefully I'll have a final answer today.
If a WholeFoods or Trader Joe's were to take up residence in the old building, I'd never move away, I swear ;)
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