Photo: Submitted Holiday shoppers along Moline's 5th Avenue. Note J.C. Penney Co. at the corner of 17th Street.

More photos from this shoot

Photo: Mike Itchue Dave Wise Jr. has taken advantage of the city of Moline's facade improvement program to assist in the redevelopment of two buildings at 1231 5th Ave. and 417 13th St. in Moline into storefronts and luxury apartments. The city has given Mr. Wize two forgivable loans totaling $39,439.20 to historically rehab two street-facing facades on each building. Some of the work is complete and some is yet underway.

Photo: Submitted In a photo taken in the early 1950s, the Molline J.CPenney store was located on 15th Street between 5th and 6th avenues.

MOLINE -- Time has caused preservation and restoration to become two familiar words in downtown Moline. But so has the word progression.

While Moline was incorporated as a city in 1848, downtown Moline hit its heyday in the 1950s, after World War II, said Moline Historic Preservation member member Barb Sandberg.

The downtown was a shopping hub filled with department stores -- Sears, J.C. Penney's, Woolworth's, the three-story New York Store which almost covered a whole block.

The YMCA and YWCA were also downtown.

Ms. Sandberg said the downtown went quiet in the late 1970s and 1980s when 23rd Avenue and SouthPark Mall began building up as shopping hubs. Many of the downtown storefronts became vacant, and buildings became neglected.

"But things move in cycles. Everything old is new again," she said. "There had been more emphasis in the past 15 years to redevelop the major component of the city, which was the downtown. There is just so much infrastructure there that we can't let it sit underutilized."

"Now we are seeing a resurgence of the downtown," said Beth Lagomarcino, co-owner of downtown-based Lagomarcino's which has been located in the downtown for 99 years. "Look at all of the development that has happened in the past 12 years. We've become something new, something worth visiting,"

In the past 12 years, the Mark of the Quad Cities opened, neglected buildings on River Drive were torn down or refurbished to create the John Deere Commons, and River Drive and the downtown came alive with new commerce after stores like Movers & Shakers and Isabelle Bloom moved in, as did restaurants and pubs, hair salons and other businesses.

"We are in a much stronger place now than what we've been," Ms. Lagomarcino said.

"A lot of that was spurred on by the private sector," she said, adding that the first steps were the Heritage Building being built, then Deere & Co. donating the land for the Mark.

But private developers have also come in and made a mark. Dave Wise Jr., feels it is important to save older buildings and to give them new life. "They represent American history and culture, what they valued," he said.

He is currently preserving and restoring the front of the buildings at 1231 5th Ave., and 421 13th St., and renovating the upstairs into luxury apartments.

The project will bring new life, and possibly another store and restaurant, to a formerly neglected block of the downtown.

"They were at the end of their physical and economical lives," he said. "I am proud to be saving this for future generations."

Ms. Sandberg said much of the restoration and downtown improvements are being undertaken by local people, "People who have a vested interest in the community, who want it to succeed and work that much harder to make it succeed."

"I've always been an optimist. I am thrilled with the direction we have taken," Ms. Lagomarcino said. "It will be different, but it will be a good thing. It won't be a primary shopping area for people, but it will be a history draw. If I want to see what an area is like, I go to the downtown. It is your history. It is your story."