The city of Moline held a ribbon-cutting Thursday, March 5, to celebrate opening of the City Services Center.
The newly remodeled building at 1830 6th Ave., formerly home to Bethany for Children & Families, is now home to the Parks & Recreation Department and the Community & Economic Development Department.
The new space creates a convenient, one-stop location for residents seeking city services, and also includes a gym space for Parks & Recreation activities and programs. City administrator Bob Vitas said Moline had been looking at staffing options for nearly five years.
The city started looking at plans for a one-stop center in summer 2021.
“We explored multiple locations,” Vitas said Thursday. “We just happened to get lucky that Bethany outgrew the space, found different space right here on River Drive, freeing up this.”
Before Bethany occupied it, the building was owned by IBM, Vitas said.
“Back in ‘21, there were a lot of changes needed in the city government. There were a lot of changes in terms of our operations and we needed a home to house our staff,” he said.
“We had staff in the public works garage that had been there for almost 20 years. Our park and recreation team literally in the garage. Not in office space, but in a garage environment.”
The nonprofit Bethany moved in 2024 a few blocks away to the Caxton Block building at 1701 River Drive. The city acquired the building for $1.2 million and spent $600,000 on renovations for the 19,000-square-foot, two-story facility. Previously, about 35 CED staff were at City Hall and 10 parks and rec employees were at the Public Works garage.
The city completely renovated the 6th Avenue building, next to Moline Township Hall, save not much work needed for the gymnasium, which will be shared by Bethany and the city.
“It was phenomenal to see what our own in-house team and facilities could do to bring this building back to life,” Vitas said. “Because when we did acquire the building, the building itself really hadn't been reinvested for a long time. It was tired, it was old, it was dirty, it wasn't working.”
The new look features the city colors -- security blue and alabaster white. “And when you get in there, you're going to feel like you've walked into a professional office building,” he said.
“If they want to build a new house, if you want to build a new commercial building, if you want to build a new industrial building, you're going to need to come here because this is where that staff is now located,” Vitas said of its public uses.
“That'll take you from the beginning to the end of the approval process. It all will start here. It'll pretty much end at city hall with a vote of the City Council. But then the inspectors, all of our building inspectors, all of our rental inspectors, everybody is in this building. That's why it's a one-stop shop. You're not running all over the city trying to get help. And we had a lot of that going on.”
Chris Mathias, city director of community and economic development, likes the fresh, new office space.
“We’ve got all the tools we need here to serve the public,” he said. “I’m seeing people here on Saturdays and Sundays to get out of their house and work.”
Eric Griffith, Moline parks and recreation director, said his department really hasn’t had its own home for over 20 years. He credited Justin Brandt of the parks department for the idea of acquiring this building for the new center.
The large second-floor conference room there will host meetings of the Park Board and planning and zoning panels, Vitas said.
Moline did hire an architect to draft renovations plans at City Hall to accommodate new offices, and that would have cost $18 million, he said, without an expansion.
“And that was just unacceptable. We're always cost conscious,” Vitas said. “We're always tax levy conscious. And we had a fire station right down the street that needs to be replaced.
"So the priority was the fire station. And that project is underway over in City Hall. We're just basically taking it one step at a time.”
At City Hall (619 16th St.), the old CED part of the building is going to be cleaned out entirely. “All the asbestos is being removed as we speak,” he said. “It'll have new carpeting, new furniture, and the finance department will be leaving the fire station and moving into City Hall back to the space that was originally built for them when the building was built.”
The city is in the design phase and contractor selection to build a new Central Fire Station, Vitas said, which will be built across from Stephens Park off 7th Street.
At Public Works (3635 4th Ave.), space has been freed up there with the new center opening.
“Some of the spaces that have been left behind by them are going to be occupied by some of our middle managers, basically our field superintendents, people that are actually in the field managing,” Vitas said. “They'll have somewhere actually that they can perform work when they're not in the field. We're maximizing utilization of every space we have.”
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