A project to improve downtown East Moline has been awarded an additional $2 million state grant.
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) announced Tuesday, April 22, that the City of East Moline has been awarded the grant to support the reconstruction and streetscaping of 15th Avenue. The investment will help the city in its efforts to create a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly “Main Street” as part of its Greater Downtown Revitalization Project.
“The revitalization of 15th Avenue and all of downtown is a transformational project for East Moline,” Mayor Reggie Freeman said in the release. “This grant allows us to leverage the RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) grant we received to make an even greater impact to support local businesses, attract new investment, and enhance quality of life for residents and visitors alike. Thank you to Gov. Pritzker, Senator Halpin, and Representative Johnson for their support of this critical project.”
The latest grant comes from DCEO’s Rebuilding Downtowns and Main Streets capital grant program. The funding will supplement existing federal funding for improvements to 15th Avenue, 7th Street, 12th Avenue, and at The Bend. The ambitious project is designed to create a better-connected Greater Downtown.
That DCEO program has awarded 25 grants to cities in Illinois totaling more than $53.8 million since 2022. Go here for a list of the grant winners.
The original $23.7 million RAISE federal grant was announced in 2022 by U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, as well as former U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Illinois.
This long-awaited project will reconstruct 15th Avenue between 6th and 13th streets and incorporated new streetscaping, widened sidewalks, and accessibility improvements to make the corridor more inviting for residents, visitors, and businesses. A key feature will be a new “festival street” between 7th and 9th streets, designed to accommodate outdoor events, food trucks, and gatherings with a pedestrian-friendly layout.
The project also will include green infrastructure to reduce surface runoff, improve pedestrian lighting for safety, and install wayfinding signage to better link downtown attractions. Additionally, a new gateway feature at 7th Street and 15th Avenue will welcome visitors to the heart of downtown. These improvements were originally identified in the city’s downtown master plan and further refined through a series of public meetings the city held in 2024.
While construction on the first phase of the Greater Downtown Revitalization kicked off last week at The Bend, construction on the 15th Avenue improvements are slated to begin this summer and are expected to be completed in 2026.
For more information on the project, visit downtowneastmoline.com.
