Developer shares vision for historic building
Chris O’Neill fell in love with the M.L. Parker Building the first time he saw it, although it took longer for the project to make sense from a business perspective.
But it was what the Baltimore developer saw going on throughout downtown Davenport — the revitalization and reinvestment — that helped tip the scales on
his decision to renovate the former department store. At a news conference Tuesday, O’Neill unveiled plans to redevelop the historic building at 2nd and Brady streets and the two adjoining buildings in the Putnam Block into One Putnam Centre.
“The first floor of the Parker Building will be the first real push,” he said, adding that the plan is to attract about three or more retailers to occupy the space that once housed the M.L. Parker Co. department store.
He said the engineering firm of Shive-Hattery is working on design plans and reconstruction of the space could begin in a few weeks. “We hope it will be ready to be occupied by the spring of 2008.”
The project is a partnership between O’Neill of Sunstone Properties Inc., who now is the controlling partner in the Putnam Block, and the Putnam Estate, which has owned the half block that stretches along Second Street between Main and Brady streets. O’Neill will lead the new partnership, Putnam Centre Properties.
Dana Waterman, the chairman of the Putnam Museum’s board of trustees and the W.C. Putnam Trust, said the Putnam Estate was the original developer and now the redeveloper of the half block. “We recently began to search for a partner that could assist us with the redevelopment of this property,” he said. “… We feel we have a responsibility to the community to do what we can to see this block redeveloped.”
Waterman said serious discussions with O’Neill began about six months ago. The Putnam Estate will retain a minority interest in the property.
O’Neill said $2 million has been set aside for the project between the investors and the financing available from Quad-City Bank & Trust. He said much of the reconstruction will be completed in order to attract small businesses to the space.
“There is a psychological barrier to a small business to starting in a space like this that has been empty some 30 years,” he said.
But the goal is to create a modern, environmentally friendly space out of what once was a thriving department store.
O’Neill drew many comparisons to the efforts in downtown Davenport and his own hometown of Baltimore — similarities such as a renovated theater, new loft housing, waterfront development and new retail and entertainment. The result there, he said, is that 2006 marked the first year since the 1960s that the population of Baltimore did not decline.
Tara Barney, the president and chief executive officer of DavenportOne, said DavenportOne and the Downtown Partnership “have been working years to bring back downtown.”
“Everybody has the idea that downtown should be what it was,” she said, adding that the nostalgic downtown of 30 years cannot be brought back. Instead a new downtown has emerged, in part, with projects such as the skybridge, River Music Experience, Figge Art Museum and Mississippi Plaza office building.
“We think this block is the story of what this downtown will be and we are more thrilled to have you help us get this done,” she told O’Neill and Waterman. “Such improvements and opportunities take the work of River Renaissance and River Vision and knit them together.”
Her wish list of tenants for the retail space being created in the former Parker store would be businesses that would serve the everyday needs of downtown residents and workers — “places residents would shop three times a week, not just shopping once a year.” Though no tenants have been secured, she hopes to see places to buy food, such as a deli or mini-grocery, a dry cleaner, nail salon and a drug store. “Those are the thing people use week in and out.”
Kevin Kelly, a Quad-City banker and the local investor in the Putnam Centre project, said he was impressed by the project because of O’Neill’s apparent long-term vision. “Sometimes it takes new ideas and people from the outside to give a new perspective.”
Jennifer DeWitt can be contacted at (563) 383-2318 or jdewitt@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
<b>About One Putnam Center</b>
The new One Putnam Centre is what has been known as the Putnam Block. It stretches along Second Street between Main and Brady streets in Davenport. The buildings include the Putnam Building, the Center Building and the Parker Building. The Parker and Putnam buildings are near twins of each other.
<br><b>About the developer</b>
The project will be developed by Chris O’Neill of Sunstone Properties Inc., Baltimore. The Putnam Estate will retain a minority interest and Kevin Kelly is a local investor.
O’Neill, who owns the majority interest in One Putnam Centre, began investing in the Quad-City market more than two years ago after his younger brother moved to Milan, Ill. “I’d never heard of the Quad-Cities,” he admitted Tuesday.
Now in Davenport, O’Neill owns the Yorktown Apartments on 35th Street as well as Fairway Plaza on West Locust Street, Pierce School in the Village of East Davenport and Jackson School on West 16th Street. In Baltimore, he has converted old buildings into new apartments.
“I like neat old properties,” he said. “These are all just buildings that have fallen by the wayside.”