Latest news with #Adelante
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Plan for South Omaha's multimillion-dollar plaza makeover progresses
Public officials, merchants and community members gathered at the South Omaha La Plaza de la Raza for an update on the makeover of the plaza and other improvements made possible largely with a state grant and also funds from the City of Omaha and Douglas County. May 2, 2025. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner) OMAHA — Construction is expected to begin this fall on the new La Plaza de la Raza, a pocket many call the heartbeat of South Omaha's historic commercial district. But that's just the start of a $25 million-plus public investment on the main business corridor of a community known historically as a landing place for the state's immigrant population. Leaders of the Adelante II initiative gathered Friday at the 24th and N Streets plaza and offered a progress report, this time sharing a stage with a host of elected officials and business representatives and reinforcing a theme of collaboration. 'Together we're bringing the heart of our community forward — adelante,' said Itzel Lopez, CEO of the Latino Economic Development Council, a lead partner on the project. Currently a paved parking lot that shifts to fiesta grounds on certain occasions, the plaza is to be transformed via a $25 million state award from the North and South Omaha recovery grant program. Its projected opening is in 2027. Douglas County and the City of Omaha each committed $500,000 from pandemic funds to the effort as well. Key features include an amphitheater, stage, playground areas, open lawn, shaded family gathering area and signature art. The plaza makeover is the anchor of the Adelante initiative, which includes other components: Before the year's end, project leaders expect to have secured a site in the district for a multi-tier parking garage, with ground floor retailers, that will more than replace parking currently at the plaza lot. Following that will come new sidewalk, streetscape and wayfinding improvements along the main 24th Street corridor to help create a uniform vibe from Q to F Streets, Lopez said. Lopez said her organization is hoping to raise additional funds for other improvements to the corridor, including a building that would house the LEDC, employment and other programming. Overseeing the Adelante II redevelopment is Canopy South, a nonprofit that calls itself a 'community quarterback.' In addition to the 24th Street area improvements, Canopy South is leading the Q Street Collaborative initiative, which received a separate $39 million from the North and South Omaha recovery grant program for several other projects in South Omaha. In all, the Nebraska Department of Economic Development in January 2024 awarded 130 groups and businesses a total of nearly $235 million through the North and South Omaha grant program. Cesar Garcia, CEO of Canopy South, said the City of Omaha is handling the acquisition of Adelante's new garage site that is to offer parking for shoppers and workers of the area. He said choices have been narrowed to a few and negotiations are ongoing. He said the plaza is a city-owned public space and will remain so once the plaza is revamped. Programming at the plaza likely will be a collaboration between the city and community organizations, Garcia said, though details are being worked out. Also speaking at the Friday event was Douglas County Board Chair Roger Garcia; Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert; Omaha Public Power District CEO Javier Fernandez; South Omaha Business Improvement District President Ross Pesek; Nebraska Department of Economic Development's Javier Saldaña and LEDC President Armando Salgado. Nebraska State Sen. Dunixi Guereca, former State Sen. Tony Vargas and Mexican Consul Jorge Ernesto Espejel Montes were among several dozen people who gathered at the plaza for entertainment by Mariachi music and dancers. Among others were City Councilmen Pete Festersen and Ron Hug; U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.; Denise Powell, who has announced her candidacy for Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District as a Democrat; merchants and community members. 'The Latino community is at the heart of South Omaha's story, and today we celebrate that legacy,' said Canopy South's Garcia, stressing that the improvements are for all of Omaha and tourists to enjoy. 'This is about investing in places that create the future we want for generations to come.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Chicago Tribune
08-04-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Post Market Place Café opens in downtown Waukegan; ‘We're always making things fresh'
Part of the mission of Post Market Place and its parent company, the not-for-profit Adelante Center for Entrepreneurship, is providing healthy food for people, whether at a restaurant or a food pantry. Ken Barber, Adelante's executive director, said microgreens for the salads and sandwiches at the Post Market Place Café in downtown Waukegan come from a hydroponic farm on Chicago's West Side — Garfield Produce Company — which is also owned by Adelante. 'We have a variety of healthy, salads, sandwiches and snacks,' Char Barnes, the Post Market Place Café manager, said. 'Our bread and pastries come from a gourmet bakery. We're always making things fresh.' The Post Market Place Café cut a ribbon for its grand opening Monday in downtown Waukegan three months after a November soft opening gave the coffee shop and eatery an opportunity to tweak its offerings based on customer feedback. Open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays, Barnes said customers can order online or in the café. Online orders are ready when they arrive. Salads and sandwiches are available as grab-and-go options, and a meal like a bagel with egg and bacon can be prepared quickly. 'We got a chance to learn what people wanted,' Barnes said. 'We curated our menu based on what we heard. A lot of people want a healthy option. They were bringing lunch from home. Now they come here.' Both Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor and Ald. Edith Newsome, 5th Ward, said at the opening that the new café will both offer a new option to people who work nearby, as well as a reason to come to the downtown area. 'These nutritious salads and sandwiches bring a much-needed addition to downtown,' Taylor said. 'This will bring more people to downtown.' 'This is a great lunch for people who work here,' Newsome added. 'It's a new opportunity for lunch.' While restaurants offer a variety of side dishes with their main course, at the Post Market Place Café a fruit cup comes with breakfast sandwiches, while fruit and chips are added for lunch. Salads and sandwiches are made in the kitchen and then placed in the grab-and-go fixture. Along with the Post Market Place Café, Barber said the organization operates the Post Pantry in North Chicago. It is a combination online grocery store and a food pantry. Donations come from a variety of places including the Northern Illinois Food Bank. If a patron wants fresh produce, there is an option. 'They place their order online. If they want a (fresh) produce item, they click on the other side and purchase it,' Barber said. 'Then can use SNAP,' he added, referring to the federal food assistance program. Part of the effort to help low-income individuals eat healthier comes through education. Barber said Adelante runs the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) camp program on hydroponic farming each summer in conjunction with Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 and Abbott. 'A lot of the diet of low-income families is cultural,' Baber said. 'We need culinary education for parents. It needs to start in high school, and even middle school. That's what we're trying to do with the camp. The children can help to educate their parents.' Barber said he is working with Rosalind Franklin University to help provide 'food as medicine.' Should a doctor feel a specific diet is needed to complement treatment for a medical condition, his organization will provide the education and the food.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
2025 Election Questionnaire: Marshall Doane, Rock Falls City Council, Ward 2
Mar. 5—Name: Marshall Doane What office are you seeking? 2nd Ward alderman on the Rock Falls City Council What is your political party? Independent, conservative leaning What is your current age? 31 Occupation and employer: Trucking dispatcher at Riverside Logistics What offices, if any, have you previously held? I've previously been part of Rock Falls City Council, but I purchased my first house and had to resign because my new residence was located in a different ward. City: Rock Falls Campaign Website: Education: I have a high school diploma from Rock Falls High School, a 2011 graduate, and some college experience at Morrison Institute of Technology. Community Involvement: I'm part of the Sauk Valley Keystone Group and have done much volunteering through that organization. We recently repainted and preserved a number of Sterling's historical murals, including Adelante on Napa's west wall, the Lady Zouaves next to Grandon Park, and my favorite, The Secret Six on the alley wall of The Precinct. We've been tapped as resources for national developers to plan large projects in our area like the Sterling Riverfront Revitalization, where all the riverfront buildings will soon be put back into working order for our community. I volunteered my time and research trying to save the historic International Harvester building in Rock Falls' downtown as well. I've also raised over $40,000 to build Dogwood Acres dog park and even set the fence posts and stretched the fencing in with help from the Dogwood Acres volunteer group in conjunction with the Sterling Park District, Sterling Fence and Sauk Valley College sports teams. I volunteered my time starting the Rock Falls holiday lights and spent many nights watching the drive-thru holiday light experience grow and change and I'm very proud of what we accomplish when we work together. I've also had small side fundraisers I started myself in which one raised over $1,100 to fill our local animal shelters pet food pantry for dogs and cats when they were in need. Last, but certainly not least, a current project I am working on is the planning and fundraising for a Rock Falls mural painted on the downtown Hueber/Dekalb Feeds loading wall that will brightly show off our town's identity and history. I'm very familiar in both planning projects and rolling up my sleeves and putting in the hard work to see them through because I want to see Rock Falls and this community succeed and look great for years to come! Marital status/Immediate family: Single, two rescued German Shepherd dogs, Sirus (8, male) and Raven (4, female). The demolition of the Micro Industries building carried with it quite a bit of discussion in the months before it was taken down. What do you believe the next steps should be for that property? I believe the only thing to do at this point with the massive space available is address the housing issue our entire community faces. A local municipality paid big money and found there was need for some 300 housing units "urgently," meaning there's people of all age and income groups looking that will move in right now. Development of a downtown loft apartment building will satisfy the desperate housing needs of many and allow people to move to and live in Rock Falls. Just as data shows and other towns physically see, putting housing options downtown will generate the city revenue in its utilities and taxes, but also having people living downtown directly contributes to the downtown's look. People that hang around old abandoned places find other places to go now that the empty spaces are occupied, and busyness in the area promotes interest for other new shops and developments as well. I don't want to see the area turned into a cheaply built strip mall that will only gain interest from predatory title loan businesses, smoke shops or low-cost discount chain stores that only suck money out of our town, never to return. If not housing, the next idea should be affordable space for new locally owned businesses where I can take my paycheck and spend it at a local market or store. Downtowns belong to the people, not big box stores! What do you believe are the top three issues that the city is facing right now? Depreciation, apathy and access to jobs. There are no big-paying jobs in our area to serve that majority of our workforce. We have large companies that pay a couple bucks above minimum wage, but with the rising costs in housing and groceries amidst the extremely high interest prices on auto loans, people can't afford to buy a new reliable car to get to a good job 30 miles away, so they have to take on a job close by for unskilled labor in a job market saturated by graduated students going to college who find the high-paying skilled labor jobs with their degrees and move out of this town to be closer to work. This leads to the depreciation of the town. Look anywhere and you will see an abandoned building with a perpetually dark second story. People can't afford a loan to put thousands into their house when they can barely afford it as is. They won't fix a rented house because they don't own it. This leads to every building aging and looking the same way. Blighted. When every building and gathering space looks run down, it affects the way you think, which leads to the apathy and nobody gets excited or cares too much about any current events. There were six open seats on City Council this year and only three new people stepped up to volunteer their time, effort, and energy to utilize Rock Falls' potential because they're focused on trying to get by in their own life. Two of them are in the same ward. That is telling. And low voting numbers show us trust is broken in the council to change things for the better. Aside from the Riverfront Park, the rest of the town has been being torn down for over 10 years, dating all the way back to the 2007-2008 economic crisis. Combating civic apathy and making positive change by policy starts at the top and I'm going to work hard to change things for the better, for all of us. Rock Falls voters will be asked to vote in April on whether to approve a public safety sales tax to help pay for 911 services in Whiteside County. Do you support this tax? If not, what are your reasons for not supporting it? To understand this tax is to know how it came about. In brief, COVID relief funds were used to establish the 911 Dispatch Center. Now that those funds are running out, the biggest cities, like Rock Falls and Sterling with Whiteside County, are all shouldering the burden. The latest proposal was a sales tax increase of .50 cents to every 100 dollars spent, and that would be on all cities and areas in Whiteside County to pay, not just the two biggest cities by population. I understand it's hard to ask anyone for a new tax when we are taxed and billed so highly in Rock Falls alone, but in this case, it's asking others to pay their fair share for our emergency services as well so I am for the tax as I intend to bring up discussions to lower our Rock Falls month-to-month utility costs overall. How do you intend to balance economic development with environmental sustainability in the community? I would like to see more green spaces and parks emerge from the remnants of what once were factories and industrial complexes filled with chemicals that are terrible for sustaining life. The city has done well in finding EPA Brownfield grants that help us remove toxic compounds from the ground, which seep right into the river close by. But with new economic developments like a travel center bringing new amounts of money into the city coffers, I would like to see or start plans to utilize a small portion of those funds in conjunction with a local business that would plant more trees and shrubbery in our area annually. I would also like to pursue researching more affordable options other than only road salt to combat ice, which is terrible for the environment and has killed a few trees along our roads very recently, including our old Lovelight Tree. A possibility that may be less expensive overall could be beet juice, which other cities have used, that would also help aid in the desalination of our river and land that would keep trees and landscaped greenery near our roads and sidewalks a bit healthier. What are your plans for enhancing public transportation and infrastructure in the city? Whiteside County Transportation has a free public transportation option for use to anyone who needs a ride, and can be scheduled on their website. I personally would love to see a few more Uber or Lyft options to help assist the community in needing not only sober rides on weekends but also quick rides for those unable to drive any other times. This would also provide some income for someone willing to step up to volunteer where they are able! As far a the transportation, with the new travel center coming to the edge of town near the interstate, refueling for commercial sized trucks and travel vehicles will be putting a lot more money into our motor fuel tax that exists solely to be used for the repairing of roads, and I will absolutely make sure to work to assist where I am able to develop a plan of action to get the worst and most traveled roads repaired in this town first and foremost. I develop a pothole report for every road in Rock Falls so the Street Department has ample notes and awareness for filling potholes each year! What role should the city council play in supporting local businesses and economic growth? The city council's role in local business should be creating a business-friendly environment. That means investing in and maintaining city-owned infrastructure around the businesses. Meaning nobody should have a broken sidewalk leading to their front door. They also have a role in attracting new businesses to the area, promoting local industries that are already here, and collaborating with community stakeholders, people who own buildings or the business or the land, to foster growth with events and allowing all of these types of businesses to flourish. There are plenty of ways to combine all these things together like events that shut down the city streets for block parties, and doing local shout-outs of different businesses so people can see what they have to offer for services or products, and even who owns them and some history of their business or building! What are your top public safety concerns for our community and how would you propose addressing them? My top public safety concern is our water. Recently I've gotten letters, I assume most people have, addressing that there could be houses serviced with lead lines, and if so, the city might not know where they are. We should know that stuff for certain. I also have concerns for the quality of water we produce. We of course are held to a certain standard by law, but those standards are only what's tested at the source and time of a problem. I had a really bad discoloration incident a few times now where my water was very clearly a different color in the early mornings but no mains or lines were broken around me. Upon testing hours later, the test came back OK, but not for my collected sample at the time of discoloration. They won't accept any collected samples, and the test was only for choliform bacteria. I don't know what was in my water by the time it got to my house; others in houses nearby have had the same issues. If it's in my line or in my house it's my responsibility to fix, but if these issues are happening in city-owned property, we should address what can be done to remedy these things and give our citizens the best we can. How will you ensure that city policies promote inclusion for all residents? By making sure our policy allows for everyone to be included, and not just cherry-picked areas or types of business. Right now our facade grant program has a territory, and the only areas are, in brief, West Second Street and First Avenue up to Dixon Avenue. That leaves the rest of First Avenue and Route 30 completely without access to a grant that would help people fix the facades of their businesses. That means a locally owned business and building in the 200 block of West Second Street could apply for the matching grant to help pay for new windows or a new awning, but less than a minute drive away, a locally owned business and building in the 1000 block of First Avenue cannot apply for help with new windows or an awning because they are considered out of bounds. That is unfair and I feel the lines need to be redrawn to promote inclusion for all businesses that might need help with upkeep on their storefronts. The projects get accepted by the committee and we should see to it that more projects are considered when making decisions and not just the same few buildings on the same short street over and over again. Do you support requiring government officials to publicly disclose potential conflicts of interest, and how would you enforce this? I absolutely support requiring government officials to publicly disclose conflicts of interest. Someone working at a fuel company should absolutely not be voting on whether or not that fuel station company should be allowing gambling machines on their premises, or a gambling bar owner in council should not be making decisions on what the city allows for those types of businesses. This only leads to slimy politics of someone trying to define how a person would benefit from basically making their own rules and if it should be OK for them to do so or not. I would personally think this is enforceable by simply removing them from committees or council where they have sway over others opinions so they don't poison the others into voting in favor of something that only favors them. They are supposed to do this themselves and are trusted to. There's already rules on this, but we unfortunately see them happen here anyways and I'm not sure why. As aldermen and alderwomen, we should be voting on matters that our wards are bringing to us, not trying to give ourselves personal advantages in business. Civic duty shouldn't be a main income source. How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents? My phone number is posted on all my city council business cards, as well as my email address, and I have a large following of engaged community members on my social media. Feel free to text or email me at any time for anything. I get mostly all notifications sent to my cell phone. I also have dispersed door hangers with my phone number on them as well, and I have no problem with anyone stopping over for tea or coffee on the front porch; my dogs are very well behaved. I am here for you, and promise to always be available as well.
