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Quad Cities USA - Guide to Davenport & Bettendorf Iowa and Rock Island & Moline Illinois
 

I Sure As Hell Hope Rock Island County Board Knows What It’s Doing With The Courthouse

March 25th, 2021
I Sure As Hell Hope Rock Island County Board Knows What It's Doing With The Courthouse

And so the saga sort-of, maybe, kinda, possibly, ends. Or not. We’ll see. The Rock Island County courthouse saga has gone on for a couple of years now, with the county wanting to demolish the building and repurpose the spot just off Centennial Bridge, and a growing number of citizens calling for it to be sold to local developer Joe Lemon, who has been trying to buy it for over a year. We at QuadCities.com have covered this issue extensively, and if you want to get more of the details, I encourage you to listen to my various QCUncut podcasts of a meeting about the issue, an interview... Read More

Is The Quad-Cities Headed For Another Toilet Paper Shortage?

November 2nd, 2020
Is The Quad-Cities Headed For Another Toilet Paper Shortage?

Is “Tiger King” coming back too? With covid numbers spiking again, general unrest about the election and the political and economic landscape, and more state restrictions looming this week, the familiar spectre of dwindling supplies on shelves — particularly toilet paper — is starting to loom in some area stores. A visit to four area locations — a Target, a Walmart, and two HyVee stores — showed that shelves in some are starting to look a little short, and one store — the Moline Target on John Deere Road — has already put up signs limiting customers... Read More

Who Needs Walmart? QuadCities.com Looking To Promote YOUR Local Business

September 12th, 2016
Who Needs Walmart? QuadCities.com Looking To Promote YOUR Local Business

To say Rock Islanders were a wee bit miffed about city officials blowing $15 million and getting stiffed by Walmart is like saying Bix Beiderbecke played around with music as a little hobby. The outrage has been justifiably hot. As I said in my last column, the city overspent by millions buying up decrepit properties on 11th street ostensibly to create space for a new Walmart which didn’t materialize. That money could’ve, and should’ve, gone to help already existing businesses owned by locals or to help local entrepreneurs looking to start up locally-owned businesses in the area. After all,... Read More

Rock Island Should Have Shopped Local With $15M Walmart Cash

September 7th, 2016
Sean Leary

To say Rock Island made a colossal error in wasting $15 million to woo Walmart to 11th Street is a stunning understatement. But what’s perhaps saddest and most pathetic about it is its irony. Rock Island, like thousands of other cities across the country, will, at least once a year, pay lip service and throw promotional money at “small business weeks” and hollow pitches to “shop local.” City officials should’ve heeded their own advice in this matter. Aside from the property owners who were able to hit a stunning jackpot on selling their failed and crumbling 11th Street businesses at... Read More

Rock Island needs to build up its downtown, and a Blacklist return would be a good start

May 24th, 2016

The city of Rock Island needs to stop pining like John Cusack lofting a sad boom box of tax incentives outside the window of the richest people in America and instead turn that attention to where their music could really be heard and appreciated – ringing through the streets of its downtown. For months, Rock Island has been panting after a Walmart location on 11th Street, and as most cities do, they have thrown a boatload of incentives at the owners of the chain, the Walton family, who need it about as much as Scrooge McDuck needs another bed of gold bars. Listen, I get it, guys. Walmart is a... Read More