May 30, 2024 | By Muddy River News

QUINCY— John Wood Community College celebrated the ribbon cutting ceremony for its Workforce Development Center (WDC) expansion project on Wednesday at the WDC, located at 2710 North 42nd Street in Quincy.

The expansion added 14,170 square feet to JWCC’s WDC facility, including a new Truck Driver Training addition, expanded space for HVAC and business and industry training, and a remodel of the current interior to include expanded spaces for welding, mixed/virtual reality learning, industrial maintenance and manufacturing, robotics and automation, and flexible use-space for new programs. Additionally, a new vehicle entrance off 42nd Street and a larger parking area were added.  A new computer-aided design lab was sponsored by Gardner Denver, and the community commons area was funded by the Rotary Club of Quincy.

The $6 million expansion was supported by a $3 million Federal Economic Adjustment Assistance Program grant awarded to JWCC in June 2021. College and private funding covered the remaining cost of the project. Klingner & Associates was the architect for the project and Maas Construction served as general contractor.

Speakers at the event included:

Dr. Bryan Renfro, JWCC President

David Hetzler, JWCC Dean of Career Technical Education

Kyle Moore, President of the Great River Economic Development Foundation

Jason Weber, Vice President of Engineering at Gardner Denver/IRCO

Chris Koetters, JWCC Truck Driver Training Instructor

Nick Weiman, Knapheide Manufacturing Engineer and JWCC alumnus

“This has been a collaboration among business, industry, and community leaders to leverage Federal dollars to ensure this region has a state-of-the-art training facility,” JWCC President Bryan Renfro said. “The expansion will help us build on our efforts to keep pace with the evolving technical skills needed to meet the region’s workforce needs. This means providing customized training to area businesses, upskilling existing workers, and continuing to build a pipeline of students to sustain and grow our region’s industries.”

John Wood Community College celebrates Workforce Development Center expansion

May 19, 2024 | By Muddy River News

The Adams County Career Guidance Team’s mission is to encourage and foster awareness of careers, educate youths and job seekers about area career opportunities and build connections between families and local employers. This event was developed to identify teachers who are incorporating career exploration into their classrooms.

Lexi Brumbaugh from Quincy High School and Bobbette Keefe from Unity High School in Mendon were celebrated on May 7. Each teacher was presented with a basket filled with donations from local businesses.

Keefe is a science teacher at Unity High School. She introduces career exploration into her anatomy and physiology class by inviting in Kerby Roberts, a registered respiratory therapist from Blessing Hospital. Roberts talked to students about what a registered respiratory therapist does and the severe shortage of them in the healthcare field. Roberts brought with her pig lungs and a human model torso, and students got to try intubating a patient and provided information and ways to job shadow her at Blessing Hospital to learn what she does.

Brumbaugh is an art teacher at Quincy High School. She brings the outside art world into all her classes, especially her advanced studio class. She enters her students into art shows to show them what other artwork is like out there and inspire them to create art for sale as freelance work. Her students attend College Fine Arts Day at Culver-Stockton College. The students create mural paintings for the high school and the windows at Hy-Vee for their summer celebration. Brumbaugh shows her students they can be an artist or art teacher, museum curator, graphic designer, interior designer, an Illustrator for medical books and more.

In a press release, Gena Finley, chair of the Adams County Works Career Guidance Team and program coordinator for Quincy Area Vocational Technical Center, said, “Our team cannot do any of this without teachers providing unique opportunities to explore careers in the classroom. We appreciate all that teachers do to help their students and want to give them the recognition they deserve. This is our small way of letting them know how much they are appreciated.”

The Adams County Career Guidance Team is comprised of members from the Great River Economic Development Foundation, Workforce Innovation Board of Western Illinois, QAVTC, John Wood Community College, Junior Achievement, IDES, school counselors and area employers. Their goal is to help facilitate learning about the wide variety of career opportunities in Adams County and promote career exploration.

QUINCY — Jim Otis doesn’t yet have a deal in place, and he won’t reveal the names of any restaurants or businesses he could potentially bring to Quincy.

But when he heads to Las Vegas for the three-day International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) conference beginning Sunday, he’ll search for retailers ready to commit to this market.

“Every developer and every broker who’s particularly retail-oriented tends to go to this conference,” Otis said. “None of these retailers are in the Quincy market, so they’ve got to come in, make their sales projections and then determine if this is a kind of rent they’re comfortable with.

“I just hope it matches with the type of number I’m trying to get for rent. They don’t tell me what their number is, and I don’t tell them my costs. It’s a dance.”

Mayor Mike Troup said Monday he’s been speaking with Otis, president of the Otis Company in Omaha, Neb., for the past three months about the 7.93-acre property on the northeast corner of 54^th and Broadway, just south of Sam’s Club. Troup said Otis, who made a presentation to the Finance Committee on Monday, has an option to buy the property.

“That was the starting point to see if we can’t get that incentive rebate money to help with the economics of putting this deal together,” Otis said. “We’re in the very beginning stages of our negotiations with tenants. The site plan represents some of the tenants we’re already working with, but they’re far from a done deal. We can’t reveal names. There’s just so much we can’t talk about now. But I’ve been through this before.”

Adams County tax records show the Edgar W. Campbell Trust of Greenville owns the property.

Otis said he first learned of the property’s availability last year at — of all places — the ICSC conference in Las Vegas. 

“I was talking to somebody and he said, ‘You know, in Quincy, there’s been this site that was on the market for years, but it had this horrible typography issue that needed to be resolved,” Otis said. “But recently, the owner allowed for some fill to be brought in. You ought to take a look at it, because it’s really well placed in that Quincy market.”

Otis visited Quincy last summer and met with Kyle Moore, president of the Great River Economic Development Foundation.

“Kyle gave me a nice tour of Quincy,” he said. “He’s all gung ho on Quincy, and he just showed me all over the place. I looked at this piece of property, and at that time, it was under contract. I thought well, shoot. I’ve probably missed an opportunity. Then it came back on the market, and I took a shot. So here we are.”

Troup says Otis is requesting a $1 million tax rebate incentive on the sales tax collected. Troup believes the deal could end up being similar to how the city structured the GMX deal on the former Kmart property on the northeast corner of 36^thand Broadway, now home to Target.

“What a great deal,” Otis said. “What would you rather have? A Target or a vacant Kmart? It cost the city nothing. It’s just sharing the sales tax. It really does help the quality of life in Quincy.”

Otis says the justification for the incentive is that although the fill was placed to fill a large hole on the site, he says it wasn’t placed correctly and must be removed.

“It’s filled with debris that needs to be removed,” he said. “It’s placed on top of soil. It’s got a moisture problem that needs to be corrected. All sorts of things still need to be worked out regarding that, because it drives the cost up.

“A million dollars lowers my land costs by about $3.40 a square foot. Of the seven and a half acres-ish, a portion is for stormwater. Then we’ve got five lots totaling 6.75 acres and you divide that the square footage of that many acres into a million dollars, and it’s $3.40. Our price is still high for the Quincy market, but you know what? I like the location.”

The next step is for the Finance Committee to approve the tax rebate document and send it to the Quincy City Council. Meanwhile, Otis wants to get signed leases on all five lots.

“Once that’s accomplished, we close,” he said. “The importance of the incentive is, you know, I’m already kind of relying on it, I suppose. It would be hard not to. I think it makes a lot of sense. The mayor’s in favor of it. I suppose in the end that it could get voted down, but I guess we’re kind of relying on it.”

Otis said most of the lots at 54^th and Broadway will be filled by restaurants, who he said “can afford to pay the highest rent” on high-priced ground. As the cost to remove the fill increased, he said the property became “too pricey” for many retail shops.

“We’re being kind of forced to deal with a certain segment,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, who doesn’t like a nice restaurant, especially if it’s new to the market? The spectrum has narrowed to a segment of the retail market that can pay the highest rent. That tends to be fast-food quick-service restaurants.”

If all goes well, Otis doesn’t believe any construction will begin for a year.

He showed the Finance Committee photos of a recently completed project by his company in an abandoned Kmart building in Dalton, Ga.

Forty percent of the building was razed to make room for a Food City grocery store, and then Ulta Beauty, Ross Dress for Less and PetSmart stores were added as well as a local sports outfitters store. Buildings for an AT&T store, a Bath and Body Works store, a jeweler, a Japanese restaurant and a Crumbl Cookies store were built. A former Shoney’s restaurant was converted into a Starbucks.

“It was an example of what we can do,” Otis said.

Before that happens, many hurdles must be cleared.

“This is not a done deal by any stretch of the imagination,” Otis said. “We’re really working the market. I think we’ll be successful, but man, there’s always a little luck involved. You’ve got to hit people at the right time. Everybody we’re talking to wants to be in Quincy, but are you ready to do the deal now? Is the rent going to scare them off? I hope not.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The name of one of the stores in the development in Dalton, Ga., was incorrect in a previous version of this story.

Developer heads to Las Vegas convention in early stages of negotiations for clients at 54th and Broadway

Quincy, Ill. (KHQA) — The GROW program is hoping to address the housing shortage in Adams County.

The Great River Economic Development Foundation, along with Adams County, is now accepting applications for the Growing Residential Opportunities County-Wide (GROW) program.

The program will offer a $20,000 incentive per unit to developers looking to construct new residential units on a vacant lot.

GREDF President Kyle Moore says that developers have already shown interest in the program before applications opened on April 16.

“There’s been a lot of interest from local developers, the Home Builders Association, and individuals who might have a property that may not have been affordable to develop with the recent rise in building cost and the interest rate increase that we’ve seen,” said Moore.

GREDF will be hosting two seminars to give more information on the program.

One training session will be on April 23rd at 4:00 p.m. at the Oakley-Lindsay Center, as well as a session over Zoom on May 1st at 12:00 p.m., which will be posted to GREDF’s website.

To apply for the program, click here.

How did we get here?

In 2023, the Great River Economic Development Foundation conducted a “Comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment for Adams County”. This study outlined the desperate need for single-family houses and affordable housing options. 

In response to this study, the Adams County Board allocated $1 million of the ARPA funds to develop the GROW, or Growing Residential Opportunities County-Wide Program, to address this need. The program focuses on developers either taking abandoned houses or empty lots and turning them into affordable housing.

With the news that the Adams County Board approved the timeline, and specific details regarding the Adams County GROW Program, you might be asking yourself, what is next? We will dive into program details below.

Program Details

To be eligible for the GROW Program, a project/development must be located within Adams County. The project may include the construction of a new residential unit(s) on a vacant lot, including a single-family residence, duplex, condos, townhouses, cluster homes, and/or apartment complex. In addition, development of a currently uninhabitable structure or partially uninhabited structure will be accepted. The developer must obtain the required permits and complete the approved scope of work within 12 months of the approval of an application to the GROW Program. Longer timelines may be considered based on application. Projects completed after December 31, 2026, will not be eligible.

The program will offer a $20,000 non-repayment loan per unit to developers. The GROW Program incentive cannot exceed 50% of the cost of the project or $100,000, whichever is less. The forgivable loan period will be five years before the date of project completion with an approved certificate of occupancy.  

The GROW Program Review Committee will include 7 (seven) representatives of the Great River Economic Development Foundation or other community members. The committee will review applications to assure proposals meet the goals/objectives of the GROW Program and to verify the application has sufficient financial resources to complete the project. More specifically, the scoring criteria used to evaluate the proposals will include project scope, private investment vs county investment, number of units, location of project, project timeline, and addressing housing need projections outlined in the “Comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment for Adams County”. The committee will submit recommendations to the Adams County Board for final approval and funding authorization.

Upon approval of the project, the owner must obtain all required permits. Mandatory inspections must be allowed during the construction process, as required by code in the jurisdiction of the project. The property owner will also be required to submit an annual inspection of the property on or around the annual anniversary of project completion for a period of five years. The inspection of the property must show compliance with all applicable codes and ordinances within that property’s jurisdiction

Timeline

For a deeper dive into the details of the program, and information needed to apply for the program, please visit the GREDF website.

There will be two training sessions:

• The first training will be on April 23rd in the Oakley-Lindsay Center at 4 p.m.
• The second training will be held on May 1st at 12 p.m. on Zoom. If you are interested in obtaining the Zoom link, please email Madison Badgley.

Applications are due to GREDF by 4 p.m. on June 18th. Applications can be sent via email to gredf@gredf.org; dropped off to the GREDF office, or sent via mail.

QUINCY — Max Dancer says the interest in the Brewhaus Townhomes development at Eighth and Jersey is emblematic of the needs of the Quincy housing market.

The 34 townhomes are the result of a $7.5 million project that was greenlighted in March 2023. Happel Realtors was the host of a public open house on Thursday night, and a business and corporate relations open house will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday.

Dancer, a commercial real estate broker for Happel Realtors, expects each of the townhomes to be completed by the end of March. His goal is for 90 percent of the units to be occupied by summertime. He believes that figure is attainable because of the low housing inventory throughout the city.

Great River Economic Development Foundation President/CEO Kyle Moore told the Adams County Board in August 2023 that Adams County is in desperate need of housing in the $100,000 to $200,000 price range and that it is lacking in two- to three-bedroom apartments. The Brewhaus Townhomes address those needs.

“(The number of affordable homes) is probably even lower now than what it was a year ago,” Dancer said. “We’ve seen the GREDF housing studies come out. Being a realtor and kind of understanding the market, we still have very, very low inventory on the housing side. Take a look at Facebook and type in ‘rentals available.’ Go see how many people are looking for rentals. 

“I’d love for every developer to start putting in affordable housing, but I also understand things are expensive.”

Dancer says all kinds of people have shown interest in the townhomes, ranging from QU students and/or their parents looking at housing possibilities for the fall 2024 semester to business professionals, young professionals and people aged 55 and older.

“It’s been a hodgepodge,” he said. “A lot of it is just gauging interest, putting out the feelers and investigating what it really is.”

Dancer said he believes as many as 25 percent of the units will be corporate rentals.

“A business could rent it out for their employees, whether it’s travelers, technicians, maintenance crews, anyone like that who’s probably going to be here on a longer-term basis,” he said. “Then you’ve got intern seasons coming up, so a lot of people are going to be looking for that. There’s not much available to park them in a spot for a few months.”

The two-bedroom, 2½-bathroom townhomes totaling approximately 1,875 square feet will be rented for $2,000 a month for a 12-month lease. Each unit has a kitchen with a stove, microwave, refrigerator, dishwasher and full-sized washer/dryer. They all have one-car attached garages and a dedicated outdoor patio space. Townhome residents also will have access to an on-site fitness center.

Construction began shortly after the Quincy City Council pledged $926,850 in TIF dollars to the project. That money paid for new sidewalks, streetlights and street trees surrounding the development, as well as water and sewer lines. Aldermen also voted to use money from the American Rescue Plan Act to pay for building permit fees, water connection fees and sewer connection fees.

Dancer said the interest in the townhomes is encouraging in many ways.

“I love seeing it, because we’ve got a lot of cool developments going on right now,” he said. “We have the trampoline park. We just got Target done. We have View21 coming, and now we have this project. I mean, if that doesn’t excite you about your community, then what are you going to get excited about?

“A lot of people have driven by here to see how fast this thing has progressed and how fast they’ve gotten done. I think that just shows that this can happen, and it can happen fast. Houses are needed. Apartments are needed. We have a lot of older homes that need a lot of help. You’re going to start fixing up those homes, or you’re going to start building new. That’s what life is now. That’s the world we live in.”

March 1, 2024 | By David Adam, MRN Editor | https://muddyrivernews.com/top-stories/realtor-says-interest-in-townhome-development-also-highlights-low-inventory-of-living-spaces-in-quincy/20240301070058/