
Brandon Carleton’s Blue Spruce General Store in downtown Davenport is thriving and growing after just six months in operation. On Thursday, April 13, the bread-baking hobbyist turned entrepreneur opened the doors of his restaurant, bakery and micro-grocer in downtown Davenport — at 217 E. Second St. — to celebrate National Community Development Week and say […]
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Brandon Carleton’s Blue Spruce General Store in downtown Davenport is thriving and growing after just six months in operation.
On Thursday, April 13, the bread-baking hobbyist turned entrepreneur opened the doors of his restaurant, bakery and micro-grocer in downtown Davenport — at 217 E. Second St. — to celebrate National Community Development Week and say thanks for a $90,000 city loan that came at a critical time for his fledgling business.
The new business stop was designed to spotlight some of the successful projects created in Davenport via Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) programs, small business loans and more. The event was led by city officials and development staff and included representatives from the offices of Iowa U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa’s U.S. senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley.
The Blue Spruce stop was the first on a bus tour that ended at City Hall and also included visits to projects being rehabbed through the Davenport’s Urban Homestead program and Habitat for Humanity.
The tour was aimed city leaders said at bringing new awareness to CDBG and HOME, which over the year has invested $6.8 million to benefit the Davenport community through various programs and partnerships such as Urban Homestead, The DREAM Project, Owner Occupied and Small Business Loans, to provide safe, affordable housing and programs to our community.
According to the city, CDBG funds support housing rehabilitation, emergency rental assistance, affordable housing development, public infrastructure projects, small business assistance, and a wide array of public service programming. HOME program funds support affordable rental housing development, direct rental assistance, housing rehabilitation, and home purchase assistance. Both programs target assistance to low-income households.
Mr. Carleton said the business loan he received through Davenport came at the right time. When he first heard about the city business loan program — which offers loans ranging from $30,000 to $100,000 — he was hesitant to sign up because he had heard it was a six-week process.
“We did not have six weeks because we were burning cash,” he said. But he worked with Tom Linehan, economic development coordinator, and got it done in two weeks. Mr. Linehan also credited Mr. Carleton’s application and business plan for swift approval.
“I remember when I first sat down and was talking to Tom about it, it seemed way too good to be true,” Mr. Carleton said. “It was like I was trying to find where the catch was and there was no catch. It’s just a really, really great program and we wouldn’t have been able to do this without it.”
The city’s small business loan requires no payment for the first six months and 25% of the loan is forgivable if the borrower maintains the right number of employees (three full-time for each $30,000 loaned). That means a quarter of the loan is “literally free money,” Mr. Carleton said, and the interest rate is just 2%.
He also urged other businesses not to shy away from getting involved in the process.
“I probably would have done it earlier if I wasn’t worried about going through the process,” he added. “But talking to everyone else made it easy.”
Still, he understands other startup business owners’ hesitation to fill out an application.
“It’s a lot of work and it can be intimidating and I think there’s a ‘Catch 22’ with a lot of entrepreneurs,” Mr. Carleton said. “I always say that there’s no problem I can't outwork, which isn’t true because I’m working a lot and still have problems.”
For Davenport At-Large Alderman Kyle Gripp, the Blue Spruce project is especially satisfying. In fact, he said it’s a mistake to measure economic development based on the big projects city’s land like Fair Oaks and Sterlite. “When I look at what we’re doing here, we made a small $90,000 loan to a small business and we got 15 to 20 good-paying jobs out of it in our downtown and we got somebody with the dream of having a successful business and we were able to help them at a low cost,” he added.
That return on investment compared to the same ratio for major projects "is really incredible and this is an awesome example of how we can take a little bit of money and have a big impact," Mr. Gripp added.
Other Davenport housing-related projects that also are making a big impact were highlighted Thursday. That included the Davenport DREAM Project neighborhood restoration program which has been involved in 52 projects, and the popular Urban Homestead program that over the last 30-plus years has fully remodeled or built more than 200 homes. Davenport’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity and local developers also allowed the city to revitalize an area of East Sixth Street by building homes in an area that had been plagued by abandoned houses and vacant lots.
CDBG funds also were used to make critical instructure improvements in the Seventh and LeClaire Street area and has funded six new retaining walls.
For nearly 50 years, CDBG has been an important resource for the community to devise programs and activities to address infrastructure, affordable housing, and community and economic development needs. For over 30 years, the HOME program has provided vital funding to help improve access to affordable housing.