Skatepark-area Construction Images

The entire skatepark is open again. According to an early morning skater, the deep bowl reopened sometime last week.


Construction is coming along on the pavilion, despite the 2 week flood delay. I wonder if the basketball courts will be popular, considering the amount of neighborhood courts around the city. If they are even a fraction as well-received as the skatepark, the concession business should be very profitable. I'm sure the gas station across the street will miss out on some business, but it will sure be safer to not have kids running back and forth across River Drive.

Tuesday morning assortment

Pleasure Pools buys part of former Buysee site -QCTimes
Good news for the Brady Street corridor. The article mentions that not only the north side of the former dealership is being redeveloped, but that the south side should be sold soon also. Despite the "evil" one ways, the area between Brady and Welcome Way from Kimberly to 53rd has always seemed like a very accessible location to me.

R.I. to hold Armory Park hearing today -QCOnline
Rock Island residents, make sure to stop in and check out the future plans for your riverfront. If you don't participate now, don't be surprised when you don't like what gets built later.

Negativity Epidemic
As I haven't noticed people using the phrase "bridge to nowhere" much lately, I'm not going to start using the term "againster" again, but there sure has been a lot of negativity lately.
The city finally paints the rusting Freight House boxcar -people complain about the color!
The city handles a flood quite well -people just make up nonexistant problems like Figge artwork being at risk
Davenport Police catch people breaking the law -people complain that they shouldn't waste time enforcing seat belt laws, despite the fact that other criminals were caught because of it.
The city privatizes and shrinks Fejervary Zoo -the QCTimes complains, despite their own editorials pushing for the closure of the zoo while providing no guidance on what to do instead.

Sometimes I think a few of these people would react to a 20-pound gold bar falling into their front yard by complaining about the dent it left in their lawn.

Drunken Monkey needs to be shut down
I'll follow my complaint about complaining with a complaint of my own. The city should be investigating the fact that one bar, The Drunken Monkey on Rockingham, requires a police response on nearly a nightly basis. It has to be the worst bar in town at this point, and is clearly not helping the surrounding neighborhood. It shouldn't be the DPD's job to provide bar security.

Construction continues
In more positive news, the renovation of the former Salvation Army building is coming right along. Having a newly vibrant Freight House combined with new residents should really change that area of River Drive for the better.

City might pull plug on Credit Island golf -QCTimes
I don't think this one's a good idea. The city's golf courses are one of the few services that actually pay for themselves, and now we have to get rid of one because it costs $70,000 to clean up every 5-7 years? Duck Creek golf course spent something like $40,000 to build a single new green a few years ago. I'll be curious to see what kind of plan this committee can come up with on what to do down there.

Lookin' good

Only 5 months in, and the new council has already worked together more on something than the previous one ever did. As a train buff, I have a soft spot for this boxcar, and its been though watching it become a rusty mess over the years. It looks great now, so a big thanks to our Aldermen.

Our underappreciated police

1 wounded in Davenport shooting -QCTimes

I listened to this whole incident on the police radio, and it was very tense. I caught the end of the story on KWQC, which had almost more wrong than right, and the QCTimes article at this point is definitely lacking information as well.

The call started with an officer calling out an emergency, saying that shots had been fired at her location (14th and Pershing), and she was chasing the involved car eastbound. With Davenport's horribly restrictive rules on pursuits, its rare enough just to hear that someone was actually chased. Most other units in the city headed for the area, and at least one had joined up with the original officer when the suspects bailed out of the car on Oneida. I believe the first of the 3 occupants was caught right away. Somewhere around this time a gunshot victim was reported back at the scene of the original shooting.

The cops then set up a perimeter near Bridge, Esplanade, Kirkwood, and 12th, broke out the "urban rifles" or AR-15 assault rifles, and began tracking down the shooters. They found one suspect in a yard, and then I believe caught another guy in an area house. Hopefully they all get convicted of attempted murder and are sent away for a couple decades. It would certainly make Davenport safer to have these folks off the streets.

Last night's incident was an extremely dangerous situation, yet the DPD handled it perfectly and professionally, with no casualties after the original shooting. With all the public respect for soldiers in the military, I've never understood why people don't have this same respect for law enforcement officers that are frequently put in what can only be described as combat situations themselves. I also wish that the administration would respect the police enough to let individual officers decide when the situation warrants a pursuit, and when its too dangerous. These same suspects may very well have run from police before, and been allowed to get away and commit additional crimes because it would be "too dangerous to chase them." Sometimes its too dangerous to let criminals get away.

Thanks to the officers who won a round last night in the fight against crime in Davenport.

Open Thread, with a bonus html lesson

*Posting will be sparse this week as I deal with some family issues. Consider this an open thread, with a bonus html lesson.*


I've noticed a decent amount of people try to post web addresses in the comments on this and other local blogs. Frequently the addresses are too long to fit in the box, and things get all messy.

Today I'll show you loyal readers a tiny piece of web language (html) that will solve this problem. In this case, the address that I want to link to is http://www.google.com, and I want the link to say Google.
I would need to type the following into the comments box:

<a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>

This would then appear as:

Google

Simply replace the www.google.com with whatever web address you want to link to, and replace Google with the name of the website, or whatever text you want to use for the link. You always need the <a href=" before the web address, and another "> after it, followed by the text you want to use, and then end with the </a>

Here's another, more useful example, using a QCTimes article and its horribly long web address:

The code:

<a href="http://qctimes.com/articles/2008/05/13/opinion/editorials/doc48266ca8dc70f112067437.txt">Think outside of the car</a>

becomes:

Think outside of the car

I know it may be confusing to those of you who aren't into this sort of thing, but if you just copy/paste and change the applicable parts, it should be relatively painless. Feel free to ask questions about this. I believe it should also work on Cruiser's blog, but your comment may have to wait for him to approve it because of the link.

Floodwall Math

This will probably be my last Flood of '08-related post, and hopefully I will return to regularly scheduled blogging.

Flood costs Davenport an estimated $735k -QCTimes

If Davenport were to build a permanent flood wall, I have read it would cost at least $60 million. Even though I think that was from a years-old estimate, and would thereby be too low, I'll use it anyway.

The last major flood was in 2003, 5 years ago. The 2008 flood made the top 10 floods of all time list, which goes back to at least 1868. Judging by that, we only have a flood like this or worse every 14 years or so. However, for the sake of this math I will say that we get a major flood every 3 years.

So we could spend $60,000,000 on a floodwall. Or we could spend $750,000 every three years to build a quick temporary levee and hose off some streets. $60M divided by every 3 years, divided by $750,000 would equal out to it taking 240 years for to "break even" on a floodwall. Somehow I doubt that floodwalls even last 240 years, especially without some annual maintenance. Spending money on maintaining a flood wall just means that it would take even longer to break even. If you change the numbers to a more realistic every-5-years major flood, and $65 million dollar floodwall, it would take 433 years to "pay off" the wall.

This is one situation where I'm definitely an againster. I'm against an expensive floodwall that pushes that water onto someone else, and I'm against spending 240 years worth of flood-fighting money to do it.


Here was LeClaire Park 12 days ago:


And here it is this morning:

And the flood goes away

I joked to a friend that I could just post the images of the river rising in reverse order instead of taking new pictures as the floodwaters recede, but that wouldn't really fool anyone.

Judging simply by the fact that this coffee cup stayed on the serving counter of the Levee Inn through the whole flood, I'd say this one wasn't as bad as '86.


The temporary berm is gone, and I'd guess River Drive is in for a cleaning today. Its already all open except for the section where the berm was, between 3rd and Brady. In the right image, we can see that the casino has resurrected their sandbag wall, and reopened. LeClaire Park doesn't look too bad, but we'll see if it recovers in time for this summer's festivals.

Credit Island hasn't gotten much attention during this flood, so it will be interesting to see how this park weathered the flood.

Freight House Farmer's Market Opens

Despite the dreary day and early time of year for produce, there was still a decent turnout at the new and improved downtown farmer's market.
The Mayor, the D1 Redcoats, and some vendors help cut the ribbon.

Hopefully it will clear up a bit today.

If you stop down, the market runs until 1PM, and as you can see its on River Drive between the Freight House and the Community Health Care parking lot, which is also where parking is provided. I was especially glad to see that the cheese curd folks had chosen the downtown market. I did drive out past the mall market, and it had a similar amount of vendors and shoppers it looked like, although much more spread out. I'm not sure how the Freight House market will be arranged when it returns to its home parking lot, but on a rainy day like today it was nice to have the booths lined up close.

A different view of the floodwaters

I went down today to Modern Woodmen Park, which was open for various festivities, and got some pictures from a different vantage point.

You can just barely see the tops of the railing sticking out of the water.


Here are a couple of pictures of the $4-8,000 walkway to the stadium. It will be interesting to see how things play out with the team and the city deciding whether the field was unplayable during these days.

Still at the stadium, you can see the temporary gates that are inserted in the gaps in the stadium wall in order to hold back the flood waters. They seem to be working well. Despite having to move 3 games, the flood protection around the stadium have saved a lot of money in cleanup and repair costs.

Freight House Farmer's Market this Saturday

Also Saturday, a bunch of whiners hanging out at the mall. Who cares.

If you want an idea of the type of petty childish junk that the people behind the previous farmer's markets are into, just check out commenter QCMike and his lame efforts to imply that the Freight House Farmer's Market is unsanitary. He also attacks the fact that they'll have live music and entertainment. He's the Karl Rove of Farmer's Markets apparently.

Here are the articles:

Freight House market opening despite flood -QCOnline

Farmer's market plans still on for riverfront -QCTimes

For years we've had what's become known as the Green Bean War. Two markets, one which allows semi-commercial products and one that doesn't, who refuse to cooperate. They have located on opposite sides of the driveway to the parking lot near the stadium, causing many traffic dangers. Steve Ahrens comes along and says we need to fix this. For various reasons they can't come to an agreement, so in a move straight out of 3rd grade, they take their market and leave. Except... apparently many vendors weren't too happy with their leadership, or its decision to abandon downtown for mall-town. These folks are staying near the Freight House for a new and better market, which is the only one I'll ever purchase from. A market for grown-ups, if you will.

Now the secessionists are claiming that Northpark will be a great location, and at the same time trying to pin all the blame on others. If Northpark is such a great place, why didn't they move there over the previous decades? They suggest the move will solve the traffic problem. I know the first place I think of when considering no traffic problems is Northpark and the Kimberly Road area. Locating at a farmer's market at a mall seems somewhere along the lines of locating a vegetarian restaurant in a meatpacking district. Malls and outdoor vendor-based markets are at opposite ends of the retail spectrum.

So there's my rant for today. It was inspired by QCMike.

Check out the downtown market this Saturday, and every Saturday and Wednesday for the rest of the summer. Its open 8am-1pm. This particular Saturday the market will be held on River Drive near the Freight House, due to the flooding. Park in the adjacent Community Health Care parking lot. If you make the trip out to the concrete wasteland, encourage the vendors to come back to downtown. Its the farmer's market with character.

2008 Flood Update: Monday afternoon

Here are today's images.


LeClaire Park, and looking upriver from the Skybridge, which has gotten very popular.


The temporary wall, and the overly-complained-about bridge to the stadium. With a wider bridge, or a couple of them, I think they could have hosted the game tonight. Almost 5000 people found dry places to park for Sunday's game, after all.


I drove through Bettendorf, and they haven't even closed up their floodwall at Leach Park, and it doesn't really look like they plan to. The hinged floodwall sections are still down, and the gate that fits in where the rode is is still sitting in its stand over by the restrooms. I thought I remember them closing that all up for lesser floods than this, but I may be wrong.

Sunday Afternoon's Flood Images

I got out yesterday and took some more pictures. I had hoped to go to the baseball game, but it didn't work out. On a side note, the River Bandits have been turning in some really good attendance numbers, especially for this early in the season with chilly weather. Yesterday's game had almost 5,000 people at it, which may be higher than any game last year.

I should get some additional pictures this afternoon. Since I believe the crest is supposed to be in the middle of the night Monday night-Tuesday morning, this afternoon's may be the highest daylight images.


The temporary berm seems to be working fine so far. As I've said in other places, its cheaper to build a temporary wall every few years than spend $100 million+ on a permanent one that just causes further problems.

More Flood Images

Here's a QCTimes article with the volunteer info.
Basically, meet at Union Station at noon and bring gloves.

Here's LeClaire Park as of 11 or so this morning. Notice IOC's flood wall to keep the all-important casino dry.


However, in the image on the left we see something that many of us have wanted to see for a while now. A towboat moored to the Rhythm City barge. I guess they may be considering moving it temporarily to a safer docking area. Or maybe its just in case it gets loose, as I believe the casino can no longer power itself. The waters are getting pretty close to the bottoms of the pedestrian ramps. On the right, we have city crews continuing work on the berm down River Drive.

"We may have to go through with this after all"

City crews begin building a berm down the middle of River Drive.

Despite all the sighs of relief that this year's river flood would not be that bad, looks like it will be hitting us after all.

Here's the QCTimes article about it.

The city had planned for this flood, so hopefully things will work smoothly despite the sudden change in forecasted crests. This spring, the Downtown Partnership has been regularly emailing updates to downtown businesses and stakeholders letting them know what the current crest predictions were, and what city flood protections were being put in place. As you can see from my images and the QCT article, the current plan calls for an earthen berm to be built down River Drive from Iowa Street to the Radisson. Bettendorf will also probably be building their usual temporary berm across River Drive at the border where their floodwall ends.

I called Davenport Public Works and they said they will be putting out a press release by tomorrow morning that details any volunteer needs that they have. I will probably have more images and volunteer details posted tomorrow.

More information about the flood plan can be found at the city website here.

Bettendorf is asking for volunteers to help fill sandbags tonight from 7-11 p.m. and starting at 8 a.m. Saturday morning at the city’s maintenance center at 4403 Devils Glen Road. The sandbags will be taken to the Iowa-American Water as a first priority, then remaining sandbags will be distributed as needed. Volunteers should be at least 15 years old and should bring work gloves.


*Bonus Points to whoever can name the 80's movie the title is a quote from.

The Dam & Fixer-Uppers

You know its flooding when the Corps of Engineers lift the dam rollers all the way out of the water because the river is the same level above and below the dam. Fortunately the city seems to be on top of the various issues, and as the media has been saying, this flood seems merely inconvenient. But I'm sure that won't stop people from complaining about the city.


I was scanning the real estate websites yesterday, and found a couple interesting ones on West 6th in the Gold Coast area. I'm sure my readers from that area know all about these, but I'll post them anyway. The images are from the Scott County Parcel Summaries.

714 W 6th
Ruhl Listing
County Assessment
Square feet: 4,412
Asking Price: $99,900

This one is already partially renovated, so I'm curious what the story is behind it. Its too bad whoever owned it before its current owner (IH Bank) couldn't finish the restoration.


726 W 6th
Ruhl Listing
County Assessment
Square feet: 5,942!
Asking Price: $145,000

I really like this one, but its enormous! Its so big that its currently split up into 11 apartments. There have to be some serious issues for something that could conceivably bring in $2500 a month to sell for $145k. Hopefully none of our ever-present slumlords go after this one.


Anyone who hasn't spent some time walking around that area should definitely do so now that our 5-month Winter has relented.

Monday Morning Open Thread

I know I haven't been posting much lately, but I'm hoping that the sudden and overdue arrival of nice weather will get me back out taking pictures and getting involved in stuff.

For now, here's some news about Sugar, the movie filmed here last summer.

Sony may get some 'Sugar' -Hollywood Reporter.com

Sony Pictures Classics is on the verge of acquiring theatrical rights for the Spanish-language film "Sugar," Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's tale of immigration and baseball.

The company would acquire theatrical rights in North America and a number of Latin American territories. Television rights would remain with HBO, whose HBO Films produced the picture. The status of home video rights was unclear at press time.

Some parties close to the deal, however, emphasized that it hadn't closed yet.

It sounds like it may just hit theaters after all, but its hard to say from the article if it would be widely released or only in "some theaters."

Other than that, and our recent Spring Violence Festival, what else is going on?

Scary stuff

Lots of scary things happening lately. I was going to steal Cruiser's tradition of a Thursday rant and complain about Bettendorf, but I'll save that for later.

I spent too much of the night reading articles and (foolishly) the comments on them, about the shooting yesterday in East Moline. I'll admit that I had an early reaction of thinking "One guy arrested for the double murder in RI, one arrest for the armed robberies, and another killed for shooting a cop. 3 criminals off the street." However... its never a good idea to feel good about people going to prison or being killed. On the flip side, there are a lot of people defending the man who was killed yesterday as being practically a saint. Clearly this was not true. As always things online seem to boil down to the extreme sides electronically screaming at each other. One side says good riddance, the others argue that the cops killed the man for no reason. Neither side is really expressing the right emotion if you ask me.

It may be good that some of these criminals are being taken off the street, but its not good that things are having to end this way for people.

Watching the near-riot that was captured by KWQC cameras makes me even more worried. In reading all the news stories and watching TV news, it seems the media is being very careful not to come out and say that the Officer was shot by Mr. Trice. It seems to me that the police are pretty sure this is what happened, but want to make absolute sure being publicly saying it. The only thing worse than people finding out that the Officer was hit by another cop would be for that to come out after people have been told otherwise. Seeing how out of hand people were getting last night, I am frightened to imagine the reaction if this incident turns out to be friendly fire. I hope that all involved can remain calm and let the situation settle down to prevent more violence from occurring.

Monday Morning Assortment

I spent Sunday visiting one of those treasures nearly in our own backyard that I'd never made it to, Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I didn't get much sleep before driving up there, so as I struggled to keep my eyes open behind the wheel I frequently thought about how nice it would be to just hop on a train in Moline or even Davenport and end up in downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, I don't know that Amtrak would have been helpful in transporting a couple 7-foot-tall IKEA bookshelves back to the QC. Shedd was great of course, but I came away thinking that Dubuque's Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium looks pretty good in a city 50x smaller than Chicago.

Does anyone else think its odd that the Abbey Hotel is using the Isle of Capri hotels as its reason for changing to a rehab center? I mean, I've never stayed at an IOC property, but are these large casino hotels really targeting the same market as a historic bed and breakfast? It just seems like it would be a completely different demographic.

Why is it that the Bix at 6 debate always turns into an argument between SoLo residents acting like these 6 nights a year are ruining their lives (they aren't) and one or more persons that insults anyone who voices their displeasure with the Bix at 6 system as being "unalthletic," anti-fitness," etc. (not true either) Where are the people working for a compromise? I suppose this 4 practice runs instead of 6 is as close as we'll get this year.

Listening to the police radio the last few nights, it seems like there's been a fight (or several) at the "Drunken Monkey" on Rockingham about every night lately. It seems like its time to look into their liquor license, except the state just handcuffs cities on that issue anyway. When police are forced to be nightly visitors to a bar, is that business really a net positive for the city?

Keith Meyer continues to rant and rave about Steve Ahrens supposedly "taking over" the farmer's market, despite the fact that the vendors remaining downtown will be forming their own group to run the market shortly. Why is it that while most people can admit that other people have different opinions, anyone who disagrees with Keith is either corrupt, incompetent, or an idiot? I have never heard anything along the lines of "I understand your side of the argument, but we'll have to agree to disagree," from him. As far as the market, some people clearly don't realize what a sad running joke the whole "green bean war" was to most Davenport citizens. There were clearly some negative issues with the previous groups, and I hope that this new group can work together like adults instead of drawing a sitcom-style white line down the middle of the farmer's market. Locating a farmer's market at a mall seems contrary to the whole idea of a farmer's market.

2 minor construction projects

They're finally working on the Dillon Fountain, which I have a special place for in my heart because of its prominence in my favorite Quad City image. If you look closely at that image, you can see that even back then the fountain was very much not fountaining.

And in less interesting news, here's a picture I took a week or two ago of the new bathrooms at Garfield Park. These were the types that some wanted to use for Centennial Park. I'm not going to say that would have been the end of the world, but I think the pavilion that is currently under construction will look much better in "Iowa's front porch's" front yard.We'll see what sort of "bathroom humor" comes of this one...

Woodfire Grill Open Thread

Friday I finally made it down to Woodfire Grill. Some friends of mine went there before the Blind Melon concert at the Redstone Room a couple weeks ago, and were unimpressed, so I was slightly worried. Fortunately, I liked it just fine.

The first thing we noticed was that we had to wait! I don't know if I ever went to Centro on a Friday or Saturday night, but I know that I never had to wait for a table. We were told it would be a 20 minute wait, and since we were with friends visited from Ohio, we took a stroll up the Skybridge while we waited. We were seated almost exactly 20 minutes after we checked in. They haven't changed much of the physical setup of the restaurant, so I'm not really sure what they were doing that whole time between Centro closing and Woodfire opening. Training the employees I suppose.

The menu was definitely more diverse than Centro, with more American choices. They had a larger and cheaper selection of sandwiches as well. I would say overall things were a few bucks cheaper than they were at Centro, so that should help their success. I got Chicken Alfredo, which I believe was 11.99, whereas I want to say it was like $13.99 for Fettuccine Alfredo at Centro, with another couple bucks if you wanted to add chicken. My girlfriend got some kind of chicken, bacon and cheese sandwich, and she chose fries as her side. She enjoyed both the sandwich and the fries, and I believe that meal was only like $8.99. There was also bread with cinnamon butter before the meal, which everyone seemed to like.

Overall it was a fine experience, and I was definitely happy to see it so busy. Considering that the prices were comparable to Applebee's or TGI Fridays, but the atmosphere was a whole lot classier, I think Woodfire Grill should do alright. The hostess said she felt their menu would make them popular, but I still think they should learn from Centro's mistake and actually advertise a bit. I'd also like to see them point out the abundance of parking within 50 feet of the restaurant as well. They have a web address, which is www.woodfiregrill.biz, but the website is still under construction. Hopefully they'll at least get the menu online soon.

Other than my little restaurant review, consider this an open thread.

Some Park Thoughts

Centennial Park -They sure didn't waste any time on this one. There is already construction fencing up surround the skatepark to keep the kids IN the skatepark and OUT of the construction zone. Its a good idea, but its must feel like you're in a prison yard at the skatepark now. There's also fencing around the perimeter of the park, even along River Drive. It'll be great to see the finished product.

Fejervary Zoo -I've commented on this before, but I felt the need to mention it again. First of all, I would really hate to see this zoo simply closed. Lock the gate and get rid of the animals? Then all we have is another big abandoned property SoLo. I would want to see a specific plan for the land currently used as a zoo before I could get behind making any big changes or closings. I also don't understand the QCTimes and Mayor Gluba's extreme insistence on closing the zoo. Of course we already have Niabi, and obviously that's our main zoo. To me that doesn't automatically mean there can be no other zoo-type attractions in the QC area. Hopefully we can work out some kind of Mother Goose Land-Petting Zoo compromise that compliments the Putnam, improves Fejervary Park, and doesn't simply lock the gates. Also, does anyone know if the zoo is open this Spring? I know its future is in limbo, but is it already semi-closed? I've actually never been there... I should check it out before its changed or eliminated.

Modern Woodmen Park -They've got a new sign up on the north side of the stadium, and I've read that a new, bigger video board is on its way. After years of the 2-color light board they used to have for displaying messages, I was already impressed with the video screen that was installed during the stadium's 2004 renovation.

West Kimberly Amphitheater- Not really a park, but I felt it fit with the category. Here's the QCTimes article about the progress towards a 40,000-person-capacity amphitheater. Obviously I'm not about to complain about private investment, but I'd still rather see some kind of public-private partnership to build the amphitheater that's proposed for west of Marquette (Crescent Park) in the RiverVision plan. I know I'd rather watch a concert with the Mississippi rolling by behind the stage than sit out in a former cornfield with other farms as scenery. However, I don't believe the Crescent Park amphitheater was supposed to hold nearly as many people, and even if it was I have no idea where they'd park. Alpine Valley's amphitheater (hillside) isn't that big acreage-wise, but the fields for parking 20,000 cars are another story.

New Riverfront Low-Income Housing Announced*

News Release, 4-1-08:

In a surprise move, City Administrator Craig Malin announced today that the City of Davenport is partnering with John Lewis Community Services to build pushpin-inspired low-income houses in what is now LeClaire Park. The general contractor will be Niky Bowles. As part of the deal, the city will sell LeClaire Park to former Alderman McGivern and developer Steve Schalk for $1, who will then lease the land to JLCS for $145,000 per year. Phil Yerington has already been hired as head of security, and former-Alderman Keith Meyer is interviewing for a position as sidewalk-shoveler. Former-Alderman VanFossen has been surveying the site by spending the last 2 nights sleeping on the ground nearby.

Once the homes are built, they are expected to be rented to those making under $40 per year, with RDA grants available to those unable to afford the rent. The properties themselves will be managed by the Quad City Rental Property Association, which will receive $50,000 a year per home in management fees from the city. Due to the innovative rain-shedding design of the thumbtacks, the stormwater fees will also be waived. Dan Lubell, of the QCRPA, said he was excited to begin the project. "These people just need somewhere to live, so we will only be charging half of their income ($20) per year for rent," he said, "with a $10 discount for those who pledge to vote for Alderman Lynn in 2009." He also mentioned that they are interested in changing to a rent-to-own system to free the tenants from those pesky rental inspections. Tara England Barney, of D1, is excited to "continue the momentum of downtown rebirth, revitalization, resurgence, renovation, and a bunch of other r-words."


*Happy April Fool's Day

Good news for the Blackhawk, and Pick one: Zoo or Buses

City approves transfer of Blackhawk Hotel -QCTimes

You really had to see Restoration St. Louis's presentation last year to appreciate the possibilities with their renovation of the Blackhawk Hotel, but I think it could be the biggest project for downtown in a lot of years. Hopefully some plans and renderings will be available soon. Its also nice to see the council unanimously approve something...


2 Meetings tonight, but unless you have a Time-Turner, you have to pick one.

1.)Transit public forum
There will be a transit public forum on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at City Hall, at 6:00pm.

Topics will include:
Ø The new hubs at Welcome Way and St. Ambrose
Ø How to get from the hub to the front door of Northpark.
Ø How the hubs will affect current service and improve it.
Ø Fuel (Diesel) prices and other cost factors with Citibus.
Ø Ridership Facts

2.)Fejervary Park Meeting
Thursday, March 27, 2008
6:00 – 8:00 PM
Parks and Recreation Office
Wiese Building
1757 West 12th Street
Davenport, Iowa
Topic for discussion:
The Future of Fejervary Park

Bye Bye Cement Plant Open Thread

Never has such an ugly demolition site looked so good.

Barb Ickes's recent column about it can be found here.

Now if only "Sippis" wasn't the new ugliest building downtown...

Downtown Davenport Project List and AbsoluteDSM's new QC forum

Over on the AbsoluteDSM forums, they recently rearranged their "Iowa Cities and Development" forum, which is used by people across the state to discuss development news in cities outside of Des Moines. Now instead of having all development news mixed together, it is organized by area, with separate forums for Ames, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Dubuque, Iowa City, the Quad Cities, Sioux City, and Waterloo-Cedar Falls. This means that instead of wading through pages of recent development news from across the state, folks can go directly to the city they're interested in. It also means that smaller news that may not be noteworthy statewide now has more of a place for each of these areas. So those of you that are into that kind of thing, feel free to check it out, or even register.

Over in the Dubuque forum, they've got a handy list of all the current projects going on in their downtown, which was put together by a forum member from Dubuque. Its quite a list, for a city of only 57,000 or so people. It seems like some of the success of the new construction in the Port of Dubuque area is spreading back into their original downtown area, and their warehouse district.

Anyway, I figured that I'd put together a Downtown Davenport Project List, for the new QC-area forum section. Obviously its going to be a work in progress, but here is what I have got so far. Feel free to let me know things that I'm missing, or any errors that I have made in what I have thus far. I'm planning to get out and take some more pictures for some of the buildings that I didn't have great images of in my 10 gigabytes of QCImages. One of things I hope to add are the other planned parks, such as Centennial Park and Crescent Park, and possibly Bechtel/Lincoln Park at 2nd and Iowa. As I said, let me know what else is going on downtown that I may have left off the list. I'm trying to limit the projects to things in the last 5 years, so since 2003.

Weed and Seed, Walking, Parks

Community members share ideas for "Weed and Seed" program -QCTimes

Tuesday night I was able to attend the 2nd Weed and Seed meeting. Unfortunately there were only a 15 or 20 people there, but it was still a very worthwhile meeting. It was interesting to see the differences in ambition of attacking some of the problems of the target area. If I remember correctly, the targeted area stretches from Division to Farnam, and from Locust to the river. Some want to address the culture of disrespect and hopelessness that is at the core of these problems, while others addressed the practical, like having more city garbage cans. Some emphasized that we need to get kids into small group situations to have an impact, while others argued that at least with group activities you've got the kids off the streets. I pointed out that one-on-one interaction is great, but I'd still rather have kids playing basketball at the friendly house than breaking into garages. One thing was certain, and that was that everyone there wanted better things for SoLo, and was willing to work for them.


Davenport: 4th-worst walking city -QCTimes

I pretty much found this ranking to be a bunch of garbage. Should Davenport be in the upper half on walkability? Probably not. Everything north of Kimberly was built for cars and people who have them. We're still catching up on simply having sidewalks along major streets like Welcome Way. However, I don't think we deserve the near-bottom ranking we got. According to the article, one of the factors was parks per square mile.

Davenport (ranked 496th) has around 2200 acres of parkland, a population of 99,514, and total city area of 64.9 square miles.
Des Moines (ranked 44th) has around 3221 acres of parkland, a population of 193,886, and total city area of 77.2 square miles.
Chicago (ranked 77th) has around 7300 acres of parkland, a population of
2,833,321, and total city area of 237 square miles.

This comes out to:

1 acre of park for every 45 citizens in Davenport.
1 acre of park for every 60 citizens in Des Moines.
1 acre of park for every 388 citizens in Chicago.

33.89 acres of park per square mile in Davenport.
41.72 acres of park per square mile in Des Moines.
30.80 acres of park per square mile in Chicago.

I consider Des Moines a very walkable city. Davenport's trail system is great, but DSM's is greater. So I'm impressed that we hold our own against them in parks per square mile, and actually have more parks per capita than both them and Chicago. Obviously this is only one component of the "walkability ranking" but I would say our large amount of parkland per person should at least move us out of the bottom 20 cities by itself. As someone commented on one of the news articles, its possible every year this magazine changes their rankings around to sell a few more magazines.


...and finally
Davenport City Council: Park's price tag debated -QCTimes

Its the skatepark pavilion all over again, and actually I believe that same pavilion is part of the $2.9 million that was bid. The city has already budgeted $3.81 million for this, for Pete's sake. Not only was the River Vision plan for Centennial Park created at public meetings which many of the negative people chose not to attend, but this money has already been approved in the budget by the city council. One of the problems is that to some of the people on the council, in their minds we're still living in the time of 33 cent gas and roller skates for a quarter. Finishing Centennial Park even ranked highly on their "goal setting" sessions or whatever they're called. If this is too much money, why did they budget even more for the project? Lets get moving on this, like we all said at the River Vision meetings.

Back from Dodgertown Open Thread

I've returned from vacation, saddened by the loss of a great tradition in the Dodgers' spring training camp at Vero Beach, Florida, but ready to get back to the business of blogging.

I hope to put up another post tonight covering a variety of topics. Until then, feel free to think negative thoughts about Glendale, Arizona. And comment on whatever.

Weed and Seed Meetings

I got this email, and thought I'd pass it along.

Stakeholder Input Sought for Needs Assessment

March 11, 2008

A group of community leaders, neighborhood representatives and organizations in Davenport has gathered together in an effort to prepare an application for a “Weed & Seed” grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Community Capacity Development Office. If selected as a Weed & Seed Community the funds will be used initially to address community issues in the area of central Davenport from Division Street to Farnam Street and from Locust Street to the Mississippi River.

The Community Input Committee for this effort will be holding two public meetings to gather information from stakeholders in the area. The first will be Saturday, March 15th, 10am-Noon and the second will be Tuesday, March 18th, 6:00-8:00pm. Both meetings will take place in the Cafeteria at Palmer Chiropractic College. The college is located at 1000 Brady Street, Davenport, IA 52803. The cafeteria is located in the lower level of the Campus Center building which connects to the skywalk on the east side of Brady St. Parking is available east of the building.

Attendees of these meetings will be asked to identify the needs of the area as well as what current programs are already working to improve the quality of life in Davenport which could be expanded. Although these meetings are open to the public, stakeholders located within the area of central Davenport outlined above are especially welcome. The quality of this needs assessment will be determined by the participation level of stakeholders.

The local Weed & Seed mission is “To improve the overall quality of life in targeted Davenport Weed & Seed neighborhoods by applying crime prevention and community development strategies in concert with law enforcement professionals, community residents, government and private organizations, educators, and other community stakeholders.” Additional information about the Weed & Seed program can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ccdo/ws

Danielle L. Stone
Weed & Seed Community Input Committee Chair
(563) 508-4356
daniellelstone@gmail.com

Roy D. DeWitt
Neighborhood Services Specialist
Economic Development
(563)888-3440
rdewitt@ci.davenport.ia.us

Jennifer A. Nahra
Communications Director
(563) 326-6151

STS-123 Space Shuttle Launch

We were lucky enough to be able to watch a nighttime space shuttle launch, although from 15 or 20 miles away on Cocoa Beach. Due to the low cloud cover, the shuttle was only visible for a few seconds before disappearing into the clouds. It was still quite an experience though, and I'm glad I was able to see one before the shuttles are retired in 2010.

I'm out of here!

Just in time for the warm-up, I'm taking a quick vacation. We'll call this an open thread. Keep it civil around here, and hopefully I'll put up a couple posts this week.

Nuts to the Isle

Land casino coming to Bettendorf; riverboat will remain in Davenport -QCTimes

We need, as citizens, to absolutely demand that IOC is either sued, or removed as the operator of the Davenport gaming license. I thought I remembered Mary Ellen saying that they are legally required to make efforts towards a maximum profit or something legalese, which clearly they aren't doing for the Davenport operation. Bring in a real casino company that has nothing to do with Bernie and his constant screwing of Davenport. Maybe they'd take me up on my casino-hotel-indoor waterpark plan.

Open Thread

Haven't had one of these for a little while. I've just got a couple conversation-starters.

I rarely venture into Bettendorf. Not counting the routes to get to I-74, I probably average less than one trip a month. There's just no need for me to go over there. I'd read news stories about them filling their potholes with cement, and seen all the Davenport-bashing comments wondering why Davenport's too stupid to do that. I was surprised to discover that their streets are just as crappy as ours.


Over on Cruiser's blog I commented that the site at 15th and Main where those 2 garage-shaped houses were built would have been an excellent site to move the Henry Deutsch House to. Just a quick trip down the street from its former location at 2101 to the 1500 block.


I miss Dairy Queen. I miss waiting for the Locust Street DQ to open for the summer. I have a lot of memories of standing around those concrete planters, peering through the screens at the ice cream machines and dip cones, and watching out for various bees, insects and spiders that seemed to hang out in the area. I also miss going down to the Bettendorf State Street location if we wanted a meal instead of just ice cream. Driving all the way out to 53rd isn't the same; maybe I should try the Middle Road one... Now I sound like Bill Wundram.

Winter Freight House Market: Great Success

Today is this month's Freight House Farmer's Market, and the first one I've bee able to make it to. If you're reading this before 3pm today, hop on down there. I watched the QCTimes video of the last one, but I didn't expect nearly so many people. We arrived within 10 minutes of the official opening, and as you can see in the image to the right, the lot was already packed.

It turned out that the whole place was packed. It was great to see so many people downtown for this, and I think the monthly winter markets could be made into weekly winter markets. I definitely look forward to summer, when hopefully both farmer's markets can come together and share the space both in and around the Freight House. With the new playground, the potential for bands, and a lot of good things to eat, it should be a heck of a bi-weekly event for downtown. I also am looking forward to the repainting of the space formerly occupied by Banana Joes!