From the top of any building in Moline, downtown living looks "picture perfect." It's walking distance from bars like Bent River and running distance from trails by the Mississippi River, but downtown dwellers say there are some things that are missing.
"We are still missing grocery stores," says Trevor Minor.
"[A] grocery store that's within reasonable finding distance," says Dylan Kenney.
Dylan and Trevor both live and work in downtown, Moline. They say walking is their primary mode of transportation. However, with grocery stores like Jewel in Moline 2.5 miles away and the HyVee in Rock Island 3.5 miles away, they have to take their car just to get some bread. They say it puts a little bit of a damper on downtown life.
"It would be nice to have a few of those things so we wouldn't have to drive all the way across town to go get stuff done," says Trevor.
"I don't understand it because there's so much traffic through here," says Dylan.
On Wednesday, September 26th, Quad City community leaders celebrated the grand opening of their newest downtown living space - The Enterprise Lofts on River Drive.
"We've got a lot of employers down here and it's also become a very vibrant place to live with all the restaurants and other activities for people to do both during the day and at night," says Janet Mathis, Executive Director of Renew Moline.
Mathis says projects like The Enterprise Lofts meet the demand of living downtown, but Renew Moline is also working on meeting the growth of it by trying to create work space, boat rental businesses, laundromats, and yes - even places to buy milk.
"We're working on that," says Mathis. "We have been approaching grocery chains to see what we can do for a small urban market."
Right now, crews are renovating two more apartment-style complexes on 5th Avenue in downtown Moline. Mathis expects them to be completed and ready to rent out sometime in Spring 2013.