Downtown Davenport leader highlights progress, success stories

Downtown Davenport has been hit with spring flooding, a tragic apartment building collapse and other challenges, but it has made great progress over the last year. That’s the message Kyle Carter, executive director of the Downtown Davenport Partnership (DDP), brought Tuesday morning, July 18, to DDP’s annual meeting at the Hotel Blackhawk. “It’s been a […]

Downtown Davenport has been hit with spring flooding, a tragic apartment building collapse and other challenges, but it has made great progress over the last year. That’s the message Kyle Carter, executive director of the Downtown Davenport Partnership (DDP), brought Tuesday morning, July 18, to DDP’s annual meeting at the Hotel Blackhawk. “It’s been a very challenging spring and summer. … But there has been an enormous amount of success,” Mr. Carter told the crowd of more than 100 people.

During much of the meeting, he focused on the downtown district’s success stories spanning the past year. Some of those successes include:

• In fiscal year 2023, downtown Davenport saw more than $29 million invested into 13 completed projects. Highlights include the Blue Spruce Bakery, Capitol Theatre, Dam Tacos, Oh So Sweet by Tiphanie, RAYGUN and The Suites.
• There are 12 projects under construction representing $69 million of additional investment, with key projects including The Last Picture House, Bowstring Lofts, Bucktown Lofts, 3rd & Main Apartments, The Garrison, Federal Pointe Apartments, Hiller Building and Martin Luther King Park.
• More housing and apartments are going into the downtown area. There have been 97 new units opened in the past fiscal year. There are 367 units under construction and 320 market-rate units planned.
• The Motor Row and Bucktown Historic District has recovered from the 2019 flood damage and has seen immense growth with new construction, new businesses and more planned.
• There are 20 planned projects projected to yield $131 million on the horizon in future years. “I think it’s fantastic there’s more investment coming,” Mr. Carter said.

One of the big planned projects is the Main Street Landing – a project that calls for $24 million in riverfront improvements over the next few years. Some of those improvements call for enhanced lighting on the Davenport Skybridge, a massive lighting project on the outside of the Figge Art Museum and much more. Mr. Carter said the project will greatly help the downtown area and attract thousands of people to Davenport. “These are the kinds of things that make you give a damn you live here,” he added. In addition to the downtown improvements, people soon will be flocking to the area for upcoming celebrations. One big day will be Saturday, July 29, when the Quad-City Times Bix 7 road race overlaps with the final day of the RAGBRAI bicycle ride in the downtown area. That weekend is now being dubbed as BixBRAI Weekend in the community. Mr. Carter added that he is also looking forward to the upcoming Alternating Currents festival, which will run Aug. 17-20 at 30-plus venues in the area. It will include a wide variety of music, comedy, film and visual arts. Last year, the festival attracted 79,000 visitors, had a $1.8 million economic impact, and featured 150 local vendors and 178 acts/screenings, according to information provided at Tuesday’s meeting. And this year’s Alternating Currents is expected to be bigger. “This has the opportunity to be our region’s calling card. … It could be as big or bigger than Bix weekend,” Mr. Carter said. But all the progress of the past year and the upcoming celebrations are coming during a time of challenges. This spring, for instance, the downtown area saw major flooding. The area quickly recovered, however, because of lessons learned during the flood of 2019, and the community rallied, Mr. Carter said. Then, on May 28, the apartment building at 324 Main St., partially collapsed, killing three residents. Since then, the community has joined forces to help the people and businesses hit by that disaster. More than $185,000 has been raised to help residents, and the DDP has allocated nearly $100,000 to help 14 businesses that were impacted by the building collapse. “I’m really proud of the community for coming together in the past couple of months,” Mr. Carter said. During Tuesday’s meeting, Mr. Carter also praised city leaders for moving forward with plans to create two-way traffic on Third and Fourth streets in downtown Davenport. He also highlighted the work of the Ambassador Program for helping improve and clean the downtown area. Some of that work has included removing 735 cubic yards of litter, 384 graffiti tags and 27 gallons of dog waste. Mr. Carter also urged members of the DDP to continue their support — especially financial support — for programs to improve the downtown area. One of his mottos shows why that support is needed. That motto is: “Capital follows talent. Talent follows place. Place needs investment.” “With stewardship of property top of mind and hard lessons learned,” he said, “now is the time to come together as a community to heal, inspire change and redouble our efforts to invest in the place we proudly call home.”