2024 brings new leader, new old location for QC Chamber

Near the top of new Quad Cities Chamber President & CEO Peter Tokar III’s crowded first-year to-do list is relocating the organization from its current downtown Davenport location to its former home at 1601 River Drive, Moline. The chamber of commerce will work with a contractor on the buildout of that new 10,000-11,000 square feet […]

Near the top of new Quad Cities Chamber President & CEO Peter Tokar III’s crowded first-year to-do list is relocating the organization from its current downtown Davenport location to its former home at 1601 River Drive, Moline. The chamber of commerce will work with a contractor on the buildout of that new 10,000-11,000 square feet of space that will encompass the second and third floors of the Moline building, Mr. Tokar told the QCBJ. The downtown building also is home to Visit Quad Cities. “Assuming we can get all the construction done and there’s still no shortage of furniture and things that we need to move in,” Mr. Tokar said the move should come “somewhere around April or May.” The new location is significantly larger than the chamber’s current location at 331 West Third St. The Davenport office served as the chamber’s only residence during the COVID-19 pandemic after the organization consolidated its offices in February 2021 and moved out of the River Drive building it leased in Moline. “As we advised businesses to do over the past year, the Quad Cities Chamber has identified financial efficiencies to best deploy its resources,” the chamber wrote in a news release at the time. After finding a tenant to take over its Moline lease, the chamber said it would be able “to spend more of our operational dollars on programs and services versus overhead costs.” The upcoming 2024 move back to the Moline to occupy the new spaces became necessary for a number of reasons, including space constraints, the immediate past Quad Cities Chamber CEO and current Chamber Board Member LaDrina Wilson told the QCBJ. While the Davenport location's space was adequate during COVID, post-pandemic “we didn’t even have enough seats for everybody, so people got good at doing their work either in their homes or out in their community with our businesses,” she added.

Space at a premium

The new offices in Moline will hold a full staff while also increasing collaboration and effectiveness. The River Drive space also is “great because it’s right there by Visit Quad Cities and we’re continuing to try to have synergy in that relationship,” Ms. Wilson added. There also “will be space for every employee to be able to have pictures of their kiddos, or their grandkids, or their dogs or cats, whatever is important to them,” she said.

Relocating to River Drive also will allow the chamber to create a second-floor space to host members and events. In addition to its new third-floor River Drive office space, the organization said it will continue to maintain smaller offices in the downtowns it manages: Bettendorf, Davenport and Rock Island. While the move back to Moline was in the works before Mr. Tokar came on board at the chamber, he brings to his new job recent and extensive experience with a major buildout and relocation. In late 2022, he led moving the McKinney (Texas) Chamber of Commerce, McKinney Community Development Corporation and McKinney Economic Development Corporation into a remade space. With the lease for the Davenport chamber’s office coming up this spring, the timing to move the chamber’s more than 30 employees to new digs also is right, Mr. Tokar added. “When we were looking at, well, where could we go, there’s a lot of synergy there with our regional partnership and our partners being right there so we can have some connectivity right there, too,” Mr. Tokar said. “And it will be great to have a front-row seat for Moline’s downtown redevelopment.”  (Find out more about the chamber's new leader in the upcoming March 19 issue of the QCBJ.