The Floreciente neighborhood is starting to bloom again, with business and city leaders recently breaking ground for a long-awaited $2.5-million development.
Ryan Companies will build a 16,800-square-foot home for Community Health Care, which will move from its 7th Street Moline clinic in late January.
“A lot of stars came together to allow this project to happen,” said Greg Lundgren, president of Ryan’s Midwest Division. As with the ambitious John Deere Commons project more than a decade ago, Ryan partnered with the city, Renew Moline and MetroLink, he said.
“This was a long time in coming,” Renew Moline executive director Jim Bowman said. “It’s really a celebration today, to finally see dirt being moved. And what a great first tenant.”
Moline Mayor Don Welvaert said the city has wanted to improve this “blighted” area — a former bus transfer site — for many years and considered three or four proposals.
“There was a lot of work that went into it,” he said.
Floreciente is a primarily Hispanic area in the west end of Moline. The city will give developer West Gateway Partners an $87,500 grant and a total property tax rebate of $314,300 through 2016. The city council also vacated 11th Street for the project, the mayor said.
West Gateway is an appropriate name, he added, as the new Community Health Care (CHC) and an eventual retail building planned as phase two will serve as the “west bookend” of downtown.
Group O chairman Bob Ontiveros is the primary investor. His partners are developer Rodney Blackwell, who plans to build the new KONE Tower at Bass Street Landing a few blocks east, and Mel Foster Realtor Thad Denhartog.
“Without him, I don’t think that this would have worked at all,” Mayor Welvaert said of Mr. Ontiveros.
CHC CEO George Barton said it was a chance meeting with Mr. Ontiveros two years ago that led to the health clinic plans.
“I’m excited for CHC,” Mr. Barton said. “I’m excited for the city of Moline, and excited for the thousands of patients that will be able to access health care at our facility.”
Mr. Ontiveros said he got involved and backed the plan because it “would be a great thing for the neighborhood.”
CHC serves 30,000 people a year at six Quad-Cities locations, including the 8,000-square-foot clinic at 1803 7th St., Moline, that will close. The nonprofit was formed in 1975 to offer affordable care to underserved children, seniors and Medicaid patients.
It has seen explosive growth in the past decade, serving the uninsured, many of them employed, Mr. Barton said. The population represents one-third of its patient load; 86 percent of all patients live at or below the poverty level.
CHC offers preventive, acute and chronic care, including lab, X-ray, pharmacy, dental, nutrition and health education services. The 40-year-old Moline building serves 6,400 patients a year, which has grown by 500 a year in the past several years, Mr. Barton said. CHC plans to accommodate 2,400 additional patients next year and add women’s health services for the first time, he said.
CHC will add 13 new employees to its current Moline staff of 25 for an annual payroll and economic impact of $2.7 million, Mr. Barton said. It also will be able to offer more preventive care programs and education in the neighborhood, at Casa Guanajuato and the Boys & Girls Club.
“We want to get the message out to the citizens, as opposed to waiting for them to come in,” Mr. Barton said.
Many local residents are CHC patients, he said. Putting the clinic closer is a big help.
“Transportation has always been a huge barrier to care,” Mr. Barton said. “We want to eliminate that barrier.”
The new one-story clinic will occupy about 14,000 square feet and have 60 on-site parking spaces. Future plans include demolishing the former Clark gas station across 11th Street to create about 20 more parking spaces, as well as a new retail building on the CHC site.
“We really are committed to phase two,” Mr. Ontiveros said. “We don’t know what’s going to come yet.”
Mr. Ontiveros said his wife, Blenda, wonders why he never retired. “It’s things like this that make you feel good,” he said. “It’s well past due.”
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