Right Here in River City

The transformation of East Second Street in downtown Davenport is truly remarkable. And The Last Picture House (TLPH) movie theater that launched its soft opening at the corner of Second and Iowa Streets is a phenomenal transformation. Especially when one considers that more than 20 years ago, when River Renaissance was launched with a referendum to incur new taxes to launch projects such as the River Music Experience and the Skybridge, the east end of downtown was literally red-lined as a “do not develop” zone by the experts from afar that helped plan the downtown revitalization. Throw in a couple of five-hundred-year floods and this area of town has had a rough go over the years.

Now this corridor is being heralded as Motor Row as a nod to its rich automobile history. The building that is now a gorgeous film house was at one time a Firestone business and it even burned a portion of the interior in a fire a long time ago. Pete Stopulos and Jens Baker own numerous buildings in Motor Row, including the building that houses Half Nelson restaurant and Bootleg Hill Meadery right next door to TLPH.

Stopulos said in an interview that when he and Baker acquired the corner building, they were not certain what they were going to do with it, but they wanted it to compliment the neighborhood. “Jens said to me that a 'Brew & View' would be cool, and amazingly soon thereafter, Sean Moeller (from Raccoon Motel next door to Ragged Records four doors west) introduced us to Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Scott already had a look-book with concepts that were super-cool and very useful in whittling this concept into fruition. Their concepts were certainly far and away more creative than a new 'Brew & View' Jens and I dreamed about, and we became fast friends,” as well as business partners.

Stopulos said that one of his partners in the Gallagher building around the corner (where Stompbox Brewery is located, next to Front Street Brewery), Tate Featherstone, asked him, “Have you called Todd Friemel yet?” Friemel is the co-owner, along with Bill Hawes, of Twin Shores construction and development services. Turns out, Twin Shores are one of the nation's premier experts in building and renovating movie theaters … and their headquarters are right here in River City! (East Moline, Illinois, actually.)

Among other projects in the Quad Cities, Twin Shores built the Active Endeavors building on Elmore Avenue, and they did the Cinemark renovation on 53rd Street, both in Davenport. They also built the Mississippi River Distillery and Green Tree brewery in LeClaire, and did the warehouse and manufacturing renovations at the Jewel group (now Lincoln Electric) in Bettendorf on State Street.

Friemel explained that Twin Shores “started from nothing in 2005 with just a laptop. We built small commercial buildings around the Quad Cities to start. Then one year, an opportunity to build a movie theater in St. Louis came up with a new client Great Escape. We built six or seven of those and that got us close to 15 projects with Carmike Cinemas, who was bought by AMC.”

They have built and renovated movie theaters in Miami, Florida, and McLean, Virginia, as well as El Paso, Texas, and Skokie, Illinois. Friemel said that when he first walked through the building at the corner of Second and Iowa, “I originally thought the building should be demolished. But then Pete and Jens shared their vision to use state-development grants to repurpose the building. We brought in Paradigm Design as the architects out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. They helped design the space and effectively we built a brand-new building inside the old building. The only thing we saved was the exterior walls. We had to bring in a structural engineer to shore up the east wall (where the TLPH logo was painted two stories tall and a half a block wide by local mural artists Heidi Sallows and Sarrah Robb) with 500 anchors because it was bowing out.” The project included pouring all-new slab concrete floors with all-new underground plumbing.

When one takes into consideration the high level of finish and high-tech lighting and sound (Tri City Electric was brought in for the electrical package) and phenomenal amount of demolition and renovation that the project required, it is astounding how much was accomplished in just seven months. Anyone who frequented that corner in their travels will tell you they saw crews working into the nights and on weekends for months on end. Jeff McCartor is the construction manager, and he said he was excited to work on a movie-theater project in his own backyard, for once.

When the project was announced in 2019, pre-pandemic and pre-flood, the price tag was cited as $3.72MM. The project received a Destination Iowa state grant of $600,000 in 2022. The footprint is 8,700 square feet and the final product is 13,000 square feet of finished space, not including the 2,200 square foot outdoor rooftop deck with spectacular river views. Stopulos confirmed that the project expenses and investment did grow to over $4MM. When asked how does such an investment pencil out, he said, “People ask me: Do we have any competition? And the answer is there's only one movie theater in the entire Quad Cities prior to this project. And that is for a regional two-state market of nearly 500,000 people. We think its a risk worth investing in.”

Critics may ask: Where will people park? I am reminded of what Downtown Davenport director Kyle Carter told me about downtown parking when Bill Collins started construction on Me & Billy's restaurant at the corner of Main and Third Street a few blocks away that has only street parking. Carter said, “If you have a solid consistent and valuable product, people will park many blocks away and walk to your destination.”

This model is likely accurate for The Last Picture House. My wife and I attended the latest Hunger Games movie the Friday after Thanksgiving with a group of nine, including four teenagers, and it was a wonderful experience. Beck and Woods have produced an opening montage that pulls clips from Saturday Night Live as well as movies such as The Blues Brothers where the Quad Cities and many of its towns are cited by famous actors. Its very clever and fun to watch. Maybe one day, we will see some of those famous actors in the lobby having a beverage before we catch a flick.

For Mike Schulz's interview with Last Picture House conceivers and partners Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, visit "Picture This!"