There’s lots of room for improvement in downtown Rock Island, and that’s why there’s lots going on to address those needs, in a partnership between the public and private sectors.

Eleven months after the City Council approved it, a new downtown Special Service Area (SSA) has taken effect, levying a new tax on those property owners within the area. The tax does not exceed 1.5% of equalized assessed value, and the $310,613 generated in the fiscal year that began July 1 will help support a $560,000 budget for the newly formed Rock Island Downtown Alliance.

The city has budgeted $80,346 for executive and administrative support, including RIDA executive director Jack Cullen (who works for the Quad Cities Chamber), Chamber marketing and financial management. Other RIDA expenses include:

• $100,000 for two full-time Cleaning Ambassadors, to do trash pickup and graffiti removal.
• $62,610 to cover salary and benefits for a new Operations Manager, to implement plans.
• $30,000 for up to 500 hours of enhanced police patrol downtown.
• $17,500 to cover up to 1,029 hours of a Community Navigator to support social service needs.
• $70,000 for all supplies and equipment.
• $45,000 to help fund interior and exterior commercial property improvements, as well as some streetscape improvements.
• $25,000 for marketing and promotion efforts.

“The city is preparing to make an investment in downtown not seen in decades,” Miles Brainard, director of the city Community and Economic Development Department, said Monday of ambitious city redevelopment plans downtown. “As demonstrated in neighboring downtowns, private investment often follows public investment.

“The Community & Economic Development Department is excited to see the positive ripple effects a project of this scale will surely have,” he said. “The city plans to work with the new Rock Island Downtown Alliance (RIDA) to develop a better inventory of downtown spaces.

“Simply saying a space is vacant fails to capture other important factors like its condition and suitability for turn-key use by a new occupant,” Brainard noted. “There are many vacant spaces, but the readiness of those spaces for reuse is highly varied.”

The RIDA has a 13-person board, one of whom is Rock Island City Manager Todd Thompson, and has been meeting monthly since April. The other 12 people must include two downtown residents, three business owners, six property owners and one nonprofit leader. Among other responsibilities, the board helps develop a strategic framework, work plan and budget for the Downtown Alliance.

Here are the inaugural RIDA board members (who have staggered terms):

• DeAnna Freeman-Foster | Owner, Big T Wear Big & Tall Clothing (Business owner)
• Raja Krishnamurthy | Information Technology Executive, Royal Neighbors of America (Business & Property owner)
• Steven Ratcliff | Co-Owner, Bent River Brewing Company (Business & Property owner)
• Greg Stecker | Manager, Stecker Graphics (Business & Property owner)
• Brett Hitchcock | Executive Vice President, Circa ‘21 Dinner Playhouse and The Speakeasy (Business & Property owner)
• Arron Sutherland | President/CEO, Illinois Casualty Company (Business & Property owner)
• Brandy VandeWalle | Owner, Skeleton Key Art & Antiques (Resident, Business & Property owner)
• Nicole Watson-Lam | Owner, Ms. BriMani’s Hair and Beauty Supply & The Urban Reserve Luxury Rooftop Events (Business & Property owner)
• John Chow | Executive Director, Rock Island Housing Authority; CEO, Community Home Partners (Nonprofit leader and Business & Property owner)
• Benjamin Fawks | Owner, Rozz-Tox (Resident & Business owner)
• Erica Williams | Resident, DuMarche Townhomes (Resident & Property owner)
• Amanda Wood | Development Manager, Russell/Rock Island Investors (Business & Property owner)

A business perspective

Steve Ratcliff — co-owner of Bent River with Nick Bowes (in Rock Island about a decade, at 512 24th St.) — said he had mixed feelings about the SSA to begin with.

“No one wants to see their taxes go up, but at the same time I want the area to do better and there’s probably no other way to do it,” he said Monday. “We just have to start offering some services, pump some money in down there, and get some investment. “

The new board has been focusing on getting everything established, Ratcliff said.

“Finding a place to set up shop at, figuring out logos and branding and setting budgets — just things like that, getting everything in place,” he said. “We’re here to help and the Downtown Alliance came from a position of, how do we maintain once we get things going, how do we maintain it? So, no one wants to see graffiti and trash and all that stuff.”

Other downtown property owners he’s talked to agree on the needs.

“It’s more money but it’s marginal and in the end, it’s gonna, if anything, if we can get downtown Rock Island back to what it used to be, all the property values go way back up,” Ratcliff said of extra staff to boost the business of everyone. “In the end, if you ever wanna sell your house or building, your property or your business will have more traffic, and it should be an overall net positive.”

All downtown property owners support a greater police presence, he said.

“A lot of the board would like there to be more of a police presence all around anyway. So I think some of this is gonna come from working with the police department and just reprioritizing getting some cops down there and then we’re offering some overtime hours, on weekend nights and things like that when traffic should be up and when people need to feel the safest,” Ratcliff said. “We wanna make sure that they can come have a good time and not worried about looking over their shoulders.”

“What I’m excited about the most is just helping businesses basically finding people with some money that wanna invest down there,” he said of improving the appearance in the area. “There are little things to just start attracting business and then once business is there, people will wanna live there and it should just snowball once this all gets going.

“Obviously, we have to get past construction and dust and fences and noise and all that stuff. But once that’s done and everything’s in place, it’s looking good.”

As most of the organization’s funding will come from the city, generated by the SSA, the organization will present an annual work plan and budget to the City Council for approval. In addition, regular reports and check-in meetings with the city will be held.

The $80,000 enhanced services agreement (including cleaning and safety) is still to be approved by City Council, as are the large streetscaping projects.

Executive director perspective

About 50% of the RIDA budget will go toward cleaning and safety initiatives, which is on par with place management organizations across the country, executive director Jack Cullen said recently.

“We’re excited about it. It’s finally time that we’re in implementation mode,” he said. Cullen was first hired April 1, 2021 under a partnership with the city of Rock Island and the QC Chamber to serve the then new role of Downtown Rock Island Director to provide place management services for the historic riverfront business district.

He’s grateful to have two successful models to pattern the new Rock Island group after – the Downtown Davenport Partnership and Downtown Bettendorf Organization. They’re all considered place management organizations.

“It’s extremely helpful to see a model that’s been in place like Downtown Davenport Partnership, that’s been in place for many years and there are definitely a lot of similarities, but there are also some differences,” Cullen said. “What’s nice about being part of the same family at the Chamber is that we’re talking all the time, communicating about challenges and opportunities, ways to collaborate. So it’s very beneficial for us to be working alongside them, across the river, but working alongside them.”

The beauty of this is, we’re not reinventing the wheel,” he said. “There are a lot of best practices out there used in downtown Davenport and beyond. And so the beauty of this though is, that it’s all custom and everyone is a little bit different, but a lot of the tools are the same.

“That’s what’s exciting thing about this is that we get to create a new custom program for downtown Rock Island and some of it will be trial and error, right?” Cullen said. “We’ll see what works and perhaps what doesn’t and continue to correct course, and ensure that we’re being good stewards of the investment from both the public and the private sector and all for the betterment of downtown Rock Island.”

There are 434 parcels in Rock Island’s SSA (some owned by the same person/company), Cullen said. He hopes to hire the new staff by late August.

Key job opening

The new Operations Manager (salary between $45,000-$53,000 a year) will be the RIDA “eyes, ears and boots on the ground” for the SSA. The role includes implementation and oversight of daily cleaning, beautification and maintenance services with a keen focus on improving the downtown experience for businesses, residents and visitors, according to the Chamber job posting.

From picking up litter and removing graffiti to clearing weeds and debris, the needs of the position vary daily and seasonally. The Operations Manager also fosters close relationships with city departments, social service providers and downtown businesses to facilitate on-street assistance for individuals experiencing homelessness and other quality-of-life issues.
 
The Operations Manager maintains a strong visible presence in the district. Downtown Rock Island is a commercial neighborhood undergoing a major revitalization and our team will be on the frontline of this transformation. The Operations Manager reports directly to the RIDA Executive Director and will lead a small team of Cleaning Ambassadors. The position is estimated to be 70% on-street duties and 30% office-related work.

For more information or to apply, click HERE.

Similar to what DDP does, the RIDA Community Navigator would not be one person’s job, but another partnership and Cullen is in the early stage of establishing that.

“It will potentially be a partnership with social service providers in town that do similar work in terms of resource connections and mobile outreach,” he said. “If you think about someone who is circulating downtown, connecting with folks who may be experiencing quality of life issues or they’re housing challenges, substance abuse, mental health issues — things of that nature with the goal of connecting them to resources to support them.”

RIDA hopes to have that piece in place by end of September, Cullen said. He has met with the RIDA board monthly since April, with a couple special meetings so far.

Inspired by Davenport

Cullen sat in the front row (at Davenport’s Hotel Blackhawk) for DDP executive director Kyle Carter’s talk on July 18 at their annual meeting.

“Kyle’s presentation was very inspiring,” he said, noting since Carter is in charge of place management for the QC Chamber, the two of them talk regularly.

“It’s exciting because with a new organization and new opportunities, it’s a great time to be setting this up,” Cullen said. “With the construction of the new federal building, the new YWCA, there’s exciting and other exciting business development projects. The city is preparing to invest a significant amount in improving public spaces and infrastructure in downtown.

“This is the organization now being created in partnership with the city to ensure that we’re maintaining and programming and continue to improve these public spaces,” he said. “There’s a lot of great synergy with all of that happening at the same time. And so I have rosy colored glasses on, but thinking ahead to the next two, three, four or five years, downtown Rock Island is going to look very different and feel very different.”

The DDP has a $1.4-million annual budget, nearly three times the new RIDA.

Great River Plaza changes

The 1800 block of 2^nd Avenue in downtown Rock Island is expected to look a lot different, with the elimination of the entirely vehicle-free plaza (Great River Plaza), by adding a through street.

“It’s balancing the want to have a pedestrian-friendly area that would allow for outdoor dining and wide sidewalks, with the need from the public works from the city’s perspective of having an area that’s easier to maintain,” Cullen said recently. “And also one that’s more accessible so more accessible — for whether it’s maintenance, vehicles or emergency service vehicles, or folks who just want to pull up right in front of a business and be dropped off.

“It’s going back to that balance again, maintaining that balance or creating that balance between a pedestrian-friendly and business-friendly area,” he said. “One that’s one that’s more accessible and easier to maintain. Part of that is with the enhanced streetscape, right? So the widening of the sidewalks, no curb line and making it easy to shut down or to close down that street to have pop-up events, whether it’s a concert or a market.”

Part of the street changes include First Avenue (Illinois 92) being narrowed to one traffic lane in each direction, to more closely connect downtown to the riverfront.

Steve Ratcliff of Bent River said these changes will make downtown look new and fresh.

“Personally, I really like that stage that was down there,” he said of Great River Plaza. “I know they wanna take that out to make it more of a through-way and I understand. At first I was like, what are you doing, you know? But then I understood. They do want more of a mobile stage that way, so those streets could be kind of set up in different ways. And that made a lot of sense. So that way that it shares some of that love with some of the other bars and some of the other areas.”

Dedicated funding and services

Trash pickup and graffiti removal are two advantages of the SSA, to have dedicated funding for downtown Cleaning Ambassadors, Cullen said.

“Public Works is good at a lot of things and we’re not trying to replace them. The goal of this is to go above and beyond both property owner obligations and general municipal services,” he said.

“A major example of that is the daily litter pickup — so they could do that, but they don’t. If you ask them, they would say, we’re not good at that,” Cullen said of the city. “That’s the beauty of having a dedicated neighborhood working on that.”

RIDA can devote “daily boots on the ground, eyes and ears on the street. And if there are issues that arise within the district we don’t have the capabilities to address, that’s the other benefit here because we can spot those issues, we can take care of them if we have the ability to do so, but we also then can elevate it to partners of the city to ensure that it gets cared for,” he added.

Another key benefit is the ability to request services, Cullen said.

“If there is an issue that a property owner or business owner, or resident observes in the district and it needs to be addressed, well, they’ll be able to call our team and if we can handle it, we’ll take care of it,” he said. “Or if it needs to be elevated, then we can elevate it to public works or the proper department. And we work well with Public Works and the Economic Development Department.”

Cullen is leasing new RIDA office space in the middle of downtown, at The Law Centre, 329 18th St., right next to the new three-story federal building. They plan to find a more visible, longer-term location, but the current location was previously home to the former Rock Island Chamber of Commerce, he said.

What happened to The District?

Downtown Rock Island was long promoted as the Arts & Entertainment District (known as The District), but that’s been long gone.

In 1974, Downtown Development Council of Rock Island, Inc. was established as a nonprofit, and in 1986 was reformulated as the Development Association of Rock Island (DARI) with the mission to promote commercial, industrial, and recreational development through ownership or management of businesses or properties, or by providing businesses assistance to enhance the tax base and quality of life in Rock Island.

In 1992, DARI created and managed the downtown Rock Island Arts & Entertainment District (The District) which then became a standalone nonprofit in 1996, DARI vice president Liz Tallman said Monday. The District and DARI collectively worked to strengthen partnerships to market and promote the greater Rock Island area and downtown Rock Island as a destination for business growth, job creation/retention, arts, entertainment, and quality of life amenities, she said.

The District had consecutive years where its signature festivals had inclement weather resulting in major financial hits, where DARI was able to support it financially to see the organization through those tough days, Tallman said.

The District board later voted to merge into DARI, and DARI board accepted The District’s liabilities and assets, and the District was dissolved in December 2018. However, DARI continued to manage the downtown programs and services, events, business assistance programs, property development, marketing, social media, etc.

DARI and the city created a public-private partnership in March 2020 that provided a greater emphasis on city-wide economic development, Tallman said. At the same time, the city contracted with the Chamber to help create a new downtown organization.

“DARI will always be an organization that is fluid and ever-changing to ensure that we help move Rock Island forward,” Tallman said Monday. “While we have shifted our focus to economic development efforts throughout Rock Island, DARI will always work in strong alignment with both public and private entities working to advance shared goals to grow downtown Rock Island into a better place to live, work, and play.”

Building updates

The new federal building at 320 18th St. (with an as-of-yet unannounced opening date) will “bring a sizable influx of daytime office workers to downtown for the first time in many years,” Miles Brainard of the city said Monday. “This presents an opportunity for more lunch spots along with other daytime retail.

“This furthers the goal of a more activated and diversified downtown business community,” he said. The federal government (which will house U.S. District Court for the Central Illinois district in the new building) has not provided the number of employees expected or opening date at this time, said Kelly Young, vice president of government development for general contractor Russell.

“Graffiti and other nuisances are being addressed as resources allow,” Brainard said. “With time, the city hopes to develop an approach in partnership with RIDA to deal more quickly with issues like that.”

In response to questions of other specific buildings, Brainard said:

• Renovations continue in the former Theo’s Java Cafe, at 213 17th St. Staff look forward to seeing the refreshed coffee house open sometime later this year. 
• The vacant former Klass buildings at 19th Street and 1st Avenue have been fenced off as a precautionary measure while the city discusses next steps. Staff have worked with the last couple of owners over the last decade or more to find options for redevelopment. “Unfortunately, nothing has ever come to fruition and the two buildings have continued to deteriorate,” Brainard said. A little more than a year ago, the city formally ordered the owner to repair or demolish the two buildings. The owner has since explored options for demolition, but has not yet done so due to a lack of funding. There is not yet a clear timeline for next steps. 

• The damaged mural across from the downtown library on 19th Street is private property and the responsibility of its respective owner. The city is not aware of any plans to repair it. 
• Last week, interior inspections were successfully completed at the Spellbound building (217 17th St.) that allowed tenants to re-occupy the building. This followed the successful deconstruction of the front parapet and the placing of protective scaffolding over the main entrances. The structural evaluation that had been done prior to all that showed that the parapet was the only major issue, although the north exterior wall also needs some minor repairs (nothing structural, just some tuckpointing). Reconstruction of the parapet in and of itself is not a large or complex project. The specific schedule of the work is up to the property owner and their contractor. The permit for the repair project is good for six months and staff will be monitoring progress.

• The vacant Best Building (with the Black Hawk mural on its river-view side) at 1701 2nd Ave., has had windows replaced and some water damage repaired, but any other redevelopment has not happened. Chris Ales, who has overseen restoration of the Capitol Theatre in downtown Davenport, has expressed interest with other partners in the downtown Rock Island site.

The city’s consultant will present results of the public feedback to downtown redevelopment plans today at 5:15 p.m. at the City Council study session (in council chambers at City Hall, 1528 3^rd Ave.).

For more information on RIDA, visit its website HERE.