What should go into Brewed Awakenings?

Brewed Awakenings in 2013

In March, two weeks after the closure of the Early Bird downtown, Cedar Rapids lost another of its great homegrown coffee houses, Brewed Awakenings, across from Coe College at 1271 1st Avenue SE. It appeared to be a temporary, COVID-related shutdown, but it never re-opened; in June, 'FOR SALE' signs appeared, then disappeared, and in July I happened upon some people collecting some effects they'd won at an auction no one I knew had heard about. The Early Bird ended with a party; Brewed Awakenings just slipped away in the night.

July 2020

Brewed Awakenings Coffeehouse nearly made it to 20, an impressive run for a small business that testifies to the devotion of its devotees. It was founded in 2000 by Deb Witte, who also started Wit's End in Marion; for maybe 10 or 12 years Brewed was owned by the Marsceau family until it was sold to Larry and Junetta Janda. "When I'm at Coe and feel the need to get out of the office for a cup of coffee, the choice is obvious," I effused in an early post on this blog. "Brewed Awakenings Coffeehouse is just across 1st Avenue and offers an impressive selection of coffee as well as a nice atmosphere." I occasionally performed here, back when they had live music, I frequently met here with the Political Science Club, and at various times it employed both of my sons and many of my students.

The building that formerly housed Brewed Awakenings is located at the intersection of 1st Avenue and 13th Street SE. Built in 1920, it is ideally constructed for a walkable neighborhood, with its front door opening directly onto the sidewalk and windows facing the street. The neighborhood is in fact nominally walkable, with a Walk Score of 77 and a Bike Score of 60. Census tract 19, in which it is located, is one of the most densely-populated in the city, and the shop is mere blocks from the two densest tracts. But except for Coe College, across 1st Avenue, a two block radius around the building has hardly any residences, and a few businesses with relatively small numbers of employees or customers, so there's not much actual walking around there. There is a lot of driving: 1st Avenue is also Business US 151 and Iowa 922, and carries about 21,000 cars a day; 13th Street is one-way north, and carries 1,950 cars per day. 

It's an 1,800-square foot building on an 8,400-square foot lot that also contains one other building that's been sporadically occupied over the years.

Vacant building at 111 13th St SE

There is some on-street parking, and a small lot accessible from 13th Street. That's a smaller footprint than the chain fast food restaurants in the area seem to need. Expansion is unlikely: to the west are two apartment buildings recently bought by Coe College, and the building across the alley to the south is home to a medical residency program. If the small parking lot between Brewed and the apartments was punched through to 1st Avenue it could conceivably be used for drive-through traffic, but that's probably a stretch.

Parking lot and potential 1st Avenue access

So the options for the corner are limited: possibly an office or another college apartment, but probably a small shop, like Brewed Awakenings or the cut-rate pizza place that was there before 2000. (Worst case scenario is someone buys it for a parking lot. Don't do it, Coe!) In contrast to 2000, any new coffeehouse would face competition: there are now two national chain coffee places in the area, and a building currently under construction is likely to be a third.

National coffee chain coming here?

Whatever goes into the Brewed space might well take advantage of the proximity to Coe College's faculty and students--in its last years, Brewed Awakenings closed at 4:30 p.m., which still seems unbelievable with all those students in search of an evening hangout--but be prepared for the four months each year when Coe is out of session.

The city might get involved in development, though I hope they won't--except to make 13th Street two-way! College Commons, a tax-incentivized mixed-use development up 1st Avenue from Coe (see Kaplan 2018 for an early reaction), crushes the surrounding properties in terms of value per acre, mainly from its two floors of apartments. But the apartments sit atop four franchise chains (Clean Laundry, H & R Block, Jimmy John's, and Scooter's Coffee), who have their main accesses to the rear parking lot not the sidewalk in front of the building. We can't beat College Commons financially, but can do better in other ways.

An older, smaller, well-worn building like the one that housed Brewed Awakenings can nurture a locally-owned small business, and depending on the occupant can help the area's walkability and, perhaps most importantly, provide a third place for the community. Ray Oldenburg's classic text, The Great Good Place, named for this short story by Henry James, makes the case for valuing places where people can be social, even across boundaries.

The first and most important function of third places is that of uniting the neighborhood.... Places such as these, which serve virtually everybody, soon create an environment in which everybody knows just about everybody. In most cases, it cannot be said that everyone, or even a majority will like everybody else. It is, however, important to know everyone, to know how they variously add to and subtract from the general welfare; to know what they can contribute in the face of various problems or crises, and to learn to be at ease with everyone in the neighborhood irrespective of how one feels about them. A third place is a "mixer." (Oldenburg 1999: xvii-xviii)

A place that could bring together and "delight and sustain" (1999: 43) college students, MedQuarter workers, gentrifiers, and long-time residents--"virtually everybody"--would be a boon to all.

The habit of association comes easier in the city, but it does [not?] come automatically. Affiliations stemming from family membership and employment are not, of themselves, adequate to either community or grass-roots democracy. There must be places in which people can find and sort one another out across the barriers of social difference. There must be places akin to the colonial tavern visited by Alexander Hamilton, which offered, as he later recorded, "a general social solvent with a very mixed company of different nations and religions." (1999: 74, citing Carl Bridenbaugh and Jesse Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen [New York: Oxford University Press, 1962], 21)

Except probably not a bar, that close to a college campus, for it is likely to take on the personality of the "horde of barbaric college students" (1999: 30) that are drawn to bars. Maybe a place where you can "have a cold one with the neighbors" (1999: xxiii) that also features live music, or artistic displays, or late-night breakfasts? Oldenburg's follow-up book, Celebrating the Third Place [Marlowe, 2001], describes an astonishingly wide variety of American third places. May the corner of 1st and 13th be the next!

Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community (Da Capo, 2nd ed, 1999)

Appendix:

NAME	ADDRESS	LAND VALUE	IMPROVE-MENT VALUE	TOTAL TAX VALUE	ACRES	VALUE PER ACRE	TAXES ESTI-MATE
Brewed & vacant bldg	111 13th St SE	100,800	147,400	248,200	0.193	1,286,010	9,328
Via Sofia’s	1119 1st Av SE	100,800	297,700	398,500	0.193	2,064,767	14,977
Wendy’s	1314 1st Av NE	336,000	1,037,900	1,424,100	0.771	1,847,082	49,996
Irene’s Bar + apt	1323 1st Av SE	126,000	258,000	384,000	0.289	1,328,720	13,118
Arby’s	1417 1st Av SE	151,200	503,000	654,200	0.386	1,694,819	22,967
College Commons + apt	1420 1st Av NE	342,700	403,900	3,301,000	0.874	3,776,888	98,747
McDonalds	1530 1st Av NE	420,000	909,000	1,329,000	1.200	1,107,500	46,658