Category: News

Hours Today: By appointment only

As I write this, the building is still smoldering.

Countless individuals worked tirelessly throughout the evening dealing with heat, exhaustion, and the fire itself. Their efforts in the light of day are even more impressive. When you see the devastation of the hotel, you realize how fortunate we are that it didn’t spread. Again, Kudos to Chief Joe Henning and the entire Quincy Fire Department. Being around the city officials again this morning, there is no doubt where credit is due. Every department head I spoke to and said thank you to gave me the same response, “It was all the Fire Department”. The Fire Department officials, who are always professional and humble gentlemen, just say a quite “Thank You” and proceed to get back to work.

Today I spoke with every business in the affected area. They were all incredibly thankful for the efforts of the QFD, QPD, Adams County EMA and so many others. They are eager to be open and serve our community.

We do not yet know when the streets will be reopened and when traffic will be diverted. We don’t know yet when demolition will begin. We know that City officials are working very hard to find a demolition company that can get here quickly and get the building to a safe condition. We anticipate this will start sometime this weekend, but until a demolition company has been secured, no timeline can be set. We do know that every business already has pedestrian accessibility, and that as soon as is safe City officials will open the streets to automotive traffic as well.

This community lost a treasure last night. Many in this community are devastated by the loss. I will share a few of their stories that touched me in the coming days. For now, let me just say that we appreciate the comments and are saddened along with you for the community’s loss.

-Travis Brown, Executive Director

Hours Today: By appointment only

Demolition has begun.

With a few swings of a wrecking ball the once great Newcomb will be reduced to a pile of bricks and memories. In the days since the fire, many people have been inquiring about saving the facade. At this point, that is unlikely. The first priority is to get this structure to where it is not a collapse risk. That is likely a 1-2 story building, but from the looks of the early demolition, probably 1. Yes, in other communities they have been able to keep a facade and put a building behind it but that doesn’t seem cost effective here. We would love to see that, but because of structural issues it is not feasible to do so.

The outpouring from the community has been overwhelmingly sad. Yes, there are always those who come down to gawk – especially on Friday night. We’ll have our share of those just watching the demolition until it is complete. However, there is a large majority of people who are genuinely saddened by the loss. Many wanted to see the building restored. We think we were close to helping make that happen. Unfortunately, that won’t happen. We will start working on the new plan soon, but for now getting the streets opened is our primary concern.

If you don’t know what a treasure we lost, I encourage you to watch this short YouTube video. This was the video from our Architectural Walking Tour that was developed by our talented intern Stephanie Schwartz in 2011. She researched the building and found the photos, and did an amazing job with all the stops. We want to continue to preserve Quincy’s rich history and amazing architecture, and this was a way that we wanted to bring a new generation to appreciate the gems we have here in Quincy. We hope you enjoy it.

– Travis Brown, Executive Director

Hours Today: By appointment only

Monday morning has finally arrived.

Businesses are opening their doors, many for the first time since Friday night’s blaze. We are still so very grateful that the damage wasn’t worse. The Quincy Fire Department did an amazing job keeping the devastation limited to the Newcomb. Traffic will be difficult for today and potentially the next few days, but all the businesses are open. We appreciate everyone’s patience as the demolition crews continue to work to make the structure safe. As soon as they do, traffic will be opened back up to normal (with the exception of a few one-lane roads) routes.

Today I want to take a minute to recognize the media for their outstanding coverage of this weekend’s events. From the 911 call through the demolition, they have done an exceptional job of keeping the public informed and capturing the story.

Both TV stations, WGEM & KHQA did a wonderful job. This happened right before their newscasts and they scrambled to bring everyone the most up to the minute coverage. We are very thankful for them.

The Quincy Herald Whig was phenomenal in their coverage. Log onto their page and you will see pictures, stories and video covering all aspects of this fire. Being on the scene Friday night I think that the Whig had every available writer on scene covering a variety of angles. Their team coverage was exceptional and we encourage you to pick up yesterday’s paper if you haven’t yet.

Quincy Journal also had excellent coverage. This was even more impressive when you consider that in the middle of the fire, their entire building was evacuated. They were able to maintain their operations and were bringing people the latest news on their site. In the days since the fire, their Quincy Journal TV page on the site has been covering demolition live. Their proximity to the building gives a great vantage point for anyone wanting to watch.

This community is blessed to have so many great men and women committed to keeping us informed. We appreciate their efforts and thank them for all they do for our community.

-Travis Brown, Executive Director

Hours Today: By appointment only

The building is down, the streets are open. As we move forward I want to take stock in what has happened over the past week.

Again, we have some amazing emergency services personnel in this community. As the demolition crew removed the upper stories of the building and you had the opportunity to see the devastation inside, you realize that the situation could have been far worse were it not for the amazing efforts of the Quincy Fire Department.

I want to take a brief moment to talk about the property owner. I have been debating what to say for a few days. How do I convey my anger without being mean? Do I even care about being mean to someone who could obviously care less for our City ? This owner is a prime example of what we do not want to see in Quincy. Someone who didn’t want to develop the property (at least in the time since I have been here), who didn’t care to get the property into the hands of someone else, who wasn’t paying taxes, insurance or the mortgage. Someone who in four plus years of attempts to contact him wouldn’t return an email, phone call or letter. A “developer” who was a drain in many ways on City resources. I don’t know if any property owner has gotten me this viscerally angry in my time back in my hometown. I just hope the City can foreclose on the property quickly and be done with this individual. We don’t need to be in partnership with people who have no interest in our community. I could go on and on with opinions and facts about this individual but at the end of the day he has shown repeatedly that he doesn’t care. Despite how much we care here locally, he probably won’t give it two thoughts. Therefore, I suggest we all pay him the same courtesy he has paid our community and move on from him as soon as possible.

Going forward, I have high hopes for this location. It’s very early in the process and still have a lot of input to gather but the possibilities are endless. I’m excited to hear people’s suggestions and ideas, and to work with the City to develop an RFP to get the best possible outcome for the property. I will share thoughts and comments as we go forward about the site, the progress and more.

Finally, the fire has been the talk of the town. Since Friday night it has been all anyone has wanted to talk about. Tuesday was particularly rough knowing the new developers were scheduled to be in town. Hopefully the talk of the fire will fade and focus more on all the positive things that are occurring in our downtown. Hopefully we can talk about a 93% occupancy rate, new businesses moving in, a bustling economy or any number of positive things that are happening. Hopefully we can use this tragedy as a springboard to prevent future losses by cracking down on negligent or absentee property owners. We are eager to move on.

-Travis Brown, Executive Director

Hours Today: By appointment only

We (HQBD) are in the process of updating our business inventory. This is a long, labor intensive process but is a very important one for us for several reasons.

First and Foremost, we want to have accurate information about our businesses. One of our main jobs here at the Historic Quincy Business District is to promote our businesses. We can’t do that well if we don’t have the correct information. Having the right contact information, hours of operation, etc. are critical. In addition, this information is what is utilized to populate our website and smartphone app. Having this data ensures that more customers are reached and can reach our businesses.

Another key reason we collect information is so that we can better understand and sell the district. Knowing how many employees, square footage, whether your business offers parking or not, and several other questions help us to plan for future growth, as well as sell the district to other potential businesses and developers.

The question that always seems to solicit a reaction is regarding rent. We ask our businesses if they rent or own. If they rent, we then ask what their rent is. This is when we get looks, comments or other reactions. It’s not a question people are used to getting, and can seem deeply personal or intrusive to the businesses. However, it is incredibly important information to an organization such as ours. This isn’t information we ever share with anyone. In fact, our board of directors doesn’t see the individual results. That information is kept for staff eyes only and treated with the utmost confidence. This information is compiled with all the other rent data to compile some statistics to help spur more development. The only way we know that rent is going for $6 per square foot in a certain area is if we ask that question. I can assure you, this isn’t to be nosy, to tell a competitor, to tell your landlord you should be paying more or any other of the several reasons that have been suggested. It is simply for us to have accurate data to help us better understand and sell the available space we have in the downtown.

I understand hesitancy in sharing this information. I hope, however, that people will read this and understand why we are asking this question and how the information helps the entire downtown to become more viable. In the end, we cannot force someone to give us the information, and we don’t want any business to do anything they aren’t comfortable with. If at any time a business isn’t comfortable, I encourage them to contact me. I would be happy to talk to them about this process or anything else the district is doing. We will continue to work hard to revitalize our beautiful downtown, and look forward to working with each of our businesses to make that happen.

–Travis M. Brown, Executive Director

Hours Today: By appointment only

Christmas is a great time of year. People gather together with friends and familiesand the whole community seems to come together once again to help our fellow man. This time of year, our organization also deals with the decorations in Washington Park. This always seems to be a hot-button for people. I can certainly understand that given how much I enjoy doing the same thing in my own home. However, decorating a public park isn’t as easy as it might seem. I wanted to take a few minutes to let people know why we do what we do, what we plan on doing in the future, and how people can get involved.

First, it is important to know that the Quincy Park District and City of Quincy have never been responsible for the lighting displays in the park. They have both generously helped with manpower to put them up, and utilities to keep them lit, but the decorations have been provided through our organization in years past as well as today.

Many people would like to see us put lights back in the trees. There are a number of barriers to make that a reality. The first and foremost is cost. We haven’t put lights in trees for several years now, but even when we were the cost was around $3000 per year. The City of Quincy would assist with the installation of the lights. They used to just string them, but winds would knock them down and so they began to use zip ties to secure them to the tree. At the end of the year, the Park District would take them down, but the Park District’s lift truck isn’t as tall as the City’s so they would only be able to get to 2/3 or so of the lights. They would simply reach up and yank to pull everything they could and then wait until the lights started dangling on their own to get the rest. They would stay up for a considerable amount of time. How long? The last strand of lights was finally removed on November 22 of this year. Due to how they had to be removed, this also meant that the lights were not useable from year to year, so each year was another $3000. As sponsorships for the lights moved (I’ll talk about that in a minute), we were forced to scale back our efforts. We would love to see a larger display but the bottom line is that dollars are needed to make that a reality, and Christmas displays are very expensive.

Some people have talked about the music that used to be played in the park during the holidays as well. We have looked into this, but unfortunately the licensing (or potential fines if you didn’t get licensing), has made this cost-prohibitive. We will continue to look at this option, but until costs come down dramatically, it will have to stay on the back burner.

Commercial grade Christmas displays are very expensive. We need to get the commercial grade items so that we can continue to build from year to year and not just replace. We’d like to see our efforts grow. It’s very easy to say we should go get sponsors, but it is never as easy as it sounds. One reason is the fantastic display that the Avenue of Lights has become. This is a great addition to our community’s holiday festivities, and something my family and I go through every year and enjoy a great deal. Look at each of those displays the next time you drive by and count the companies that are providing dollars to make that possible. That is where sponsorship dollars are going, and with good reason. They receive a pretty big bang for their buck. The companies who choose to sponsor Christmas decorations for the community tend to do so there, which leaves us needing more dollars to make the displays downtown possible.

Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t begrudge these companies one bit. I understand the decision and would probably make the same one if I were in their position. We just have to be realistic about what that has become and why companies will choose to spend their dollars there. We have also been very blessed the last few years by having Comcast as a sponsor for the downtown holiday lights. Without their assistance, we wouldn’t be able to do anything in the park. We are eternally grateful for their help and thankful they continue to assist us in bringing some Christmas decor to downtown Quincy.

Hopefully this helps to explain how we got to where we are with Christmas decorations in our community. So where do we go from here? Our organization is in the process of developing a sponsorship packet for 2014 which includes the Christmas displays. We will be letting all our businesses know about the opportunities to sponsor Christmas lights early in the year so that hopefully we can secure a few more sponsors. We will continue to work through our design committee to put together the best possible display for our downtown. If you would like to contribute to the fund or help with fundraising efforts, please feel free to contact me via email at tbrown@dist.flywheelsites.com any time.

In the mean time, we want to thank Comcast for their sponsorship and hope that everyone enjoys the display that we will be lighting Friday night. Merry Christmas!

-Travis M. Brown, Executive Director