Work will begin soon to convert more old buildings in downtown Davenport into more loft apartments. Wednesday developers John Ruhl and John Carroll broke ground for the Pershing Hill Lofts, at Pershing Avenue and East 5th Street.
Ruhl says they bought the former Crescent Electric warehouse buildings four years ago, and it took a long time to get the project planned and financed.
"This project utilizes historic tax credits from the state of Iowa and US government. It also utilizes the enterprise zone and grayfield tax credits. So this is a combination of a number of different incentives."
Carroll says it will cost 15 million dollars to convert the buildings into 62 apartments, with rents from 900 to 14-hundred dollars per month.
"The amount of the construction dollars we're putting in, I think it's going to make it the nicest building down here. And it should be because it's the largest and really one of the most historic, apart form the Black Hawk."
Crescent Electric built one of the two buildings in 1912, while the other was opened in 1914 by Sieg Iron Company.
Completion is expected in a year and-a-half.
Kyle Carter from the Downtown Davenport Partnership says when this project is finished the city will have more than 13-hundred apartments in this part of the city, and some other conversion projects in the works could boost that to more than 15-hundred within a couple of years.
