What's Up Downtown February 2025
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ALTON - Alton Main Street hosted its quarterly “What’s Up Downtown” meeting on Feb. 26, 2025, to share information about businesses and happenings in downtown Alton. Stakeholders spoke about plans for their businesses and organizations.
Alderwoman Betsy Allen invited the community to a flood mitigation meeting to take place at Alton City Hall on Feb. 27, 2025. Chantel Morrigan shared an update on Jacoby Arts Center’s new location at 208 State Street. Megan Tyler spoke about her organization Sacred Spaces of CARE and their work in the community. Julie Harper introduced her new artist collective, Bluff City Bazaar. Father Garron Daniels shared more about the happenings at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Joan Meier from Wisdom Qigong Meditation introduced her practice at Radiance Yoga.
Betsy Allen said that the flood mitigation meeting will inform community members about proposed flooding solutions in the City of Alton, including a floodwall. She said in her years of being the Ward One alderwoman, she has not found one person who is in favor of the floodwall. She added that she is opposed to the floodwall solution.
“Alton is prone to flooding and will continue to be prone to flooding for all time, part of the problem being that we’re next to our wonderful river,” she said. “I just encourage you all to come to listen. I’m not an engineer. I’m not an expert. The City incurs about $700,000 each time that we have major flooding, and so City representatives are just looking for ways to mitigate those expenses and also the economic damage that happens when businesses have to close and evacuate and all the bad stuff that comes with flooding.”
Chantel Morrigan spoke about the new location of Jacoby Arts Center at 208 State Street, the former location of State Street Market. She said the building is in need of some renovations, but they hope to start programming by the end of April with regular programming beginning in June with kids’ summer camps. She noted that there will be volunteer opportunities in the spring for people who want to help.
“It is just going to be a wonderful space for our programming,” Morrigan said. “We are able to keep quite a lot of what we have done in the past and potentially open ourselves up to doing some new things as well.”
Megan Tyler introduced Sacred Spaces of CARE, her organization that works to combat mental health and substance use disorders. They work with the Alton Police Department to encourage officer wellbeing and promote trauma-informed crisis responses. They also regularly engage with people experiencing crises or homelessness. Tyler invited the community to their film premiere at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, 2025, at the Hatheway Cultural Center at Lewis and Clark Community College.
“When we founded the organization, my vision was to not duplicate services that already exist in our community, but really to look and try to identify some gaps in what we were seeing in our community,” she explained. “Our systems are not always the most easy to navigate when someone is making the difficult decision to pursue help for themselves, but we want to just try to walk alongside individuals in that process.”
Julie Harper shared information about Bluff City Bazaar, opening in April at 612 Belle Street. The artisan collective will showcase Harper’s work along with the work of five other “very capable, talented people.” These six women have founded the collective together, and they’re looking for more artists and vendors who would be interested in renting space. They hope to welcome the community for a grand opening in April.
“I’m sort of trying to segue back into downtown Alton because, well, who doesn’t love downtown Alton?” Harper said. “Plus, we have this space. We’re super excited about the Sugar Alley thing and Jacoby coming right here. It’s all wonderful.”
Father Garron Daniels explained that he is the 21st rector of St. Paul’s and Trinity Chapel. The Episcopal Parish has been in Alton for 190 years. Daniels said the church’s purpose is community, and they have services, Bible study, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and a pet food pantry. They partner with Crisis Food Center, the Overnight Warming Locations, and several local choirs.
“The Episcopal Church, the best way to describe it is Catholic but reformed,” he added. “In the English tradition, we have the sacraments, we have deacons, priests, bishops, and we base everything first and foremost on scripture, then tradition. So, we’re looking at church history, looking at the fathers, the mothers, the saints of the church, and then looking at human reasoning and experience and using all of that to really get to the core of what we believe and who we are.”’
Joan Meier explained that Wisdom Qigong Meditation is located inside Radiance Yoga at 211 E. Broadway Street. The business promotes meditation and intention through Wisdom Qigong. They will have a workshop in late April.
“Wisdom Qigong is an Eastern meditative practice, and Qigong is our practice moving Qi,” Meier said. “Qi is another word for our life energy. And how do we practice or exercise the energy within our body? We do that in three ways, through gentle physical movements, chanting practices and silent, guided meditation.”
As the night wrapped up, the audience passed around the microphone so community members could share about other businesses or upcoming events. “What’s Up Downtown” is a quarterly meeting. Anyone who wants to know more can contact Alton Main Street at their official website at DowntownAlton.com.
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