A milestone in Moline, where years of work are clearly visible on the downtown streets now. It's only the beginning of more projects to come.
People strolling around downtown Moline on a Tuesday afternoon is a typical sight these days, but not long ago, getting people downtown, at anytime, was the goal.
"We're getting a surprising amount of people that are coming downtown Moline to visit us for lunch," said Abraham Blair, director of kitchen operations for Brix.
Brix opened back in July 2014, just one of the many new businesses to pop up in the last year.
"There's just more energy, more excitement about downtown Moline," said Blair.
Along with more businesses over the last year in Moline, 150 new apartments have opened up.
"More people living down here, more people to feed," said Blair.
Lagomarcino's has been around for 160 years and they're already noticing a change in their sales.
"We had the busiest summer we've had," said owner Beth Lagomarcino.
A big part in downtown Moline's development is Renew Moline, a non-profit economic development organization. They're getting ready to celebrate 25 years of work, transforming downtown Moline.
"We're seeing projects that have taken a long time to kind of gel are now 100 percent complete or nearly complete so now it's time for more development," said Ray Forsythe, planning and development director for the city of Moline.
There's more projects to come. More residential space will soon fill what had been empty commercial space and the ongoing expansion of Western Illinois University's Quad Cities campus could bring another 3,000 students here in the next couple years.
"Those students, you know, downtown Moline is the closest place for them to go," said Forsythe.
Plus one new hotel off River Drive and another new hotel at the site of what will soon be the new Amtrak station by the I-Wireless Center with even more restaurants and retail space.
A momentum business owner's hope keeps up.
"It seems like downtown again is a place to be," said Lagomarcino.
The Amtrak station should be ready to go by the end of next year. It will be the first time in more than three decades for passenger rail service in the metro area.