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| Is the world ready for 1st Avenue E to look like this? (Swiped from hdrinc.com; used without permission) |
The closure this month of the 1st Avenue Hy-Vee and Via Sofia's Restaurant has drawn attention to the perennial low performance of this historic street that slices between the Mound View and Wellington Heights neighborhoods. Without these two anchors, 1st Avenue might now be said to be in a state of crisis.
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| 1125: Via Sofia's has closed, but new tenants are coming, possibly soon |
Perhaps co-incidentally, the City of Cedar Rapids is undertaking to create a plan for 1st Avenue East from 12th Street (location of Via Sofia's) to 17th Street (one block above Hy-Vee). The street was developed over a hundred years ago, and still bears the signs of being a neighborhood market street. Unfortunately, since then, the surrounding area has been emptied of population, especially below 14th Street, while 1st Avenue has been widened to a five-lane highway that carries 17,000 cars per day through this stretch. Auto-oriented development has not been good for a street built for walkable neighborhoods: The population within a walkable distance has declined, while the cars whizzing through have trouble finding places to park.
Here is an extreme but real example: The side of 2nd Avenue pictured below...
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| 1246 2nd Ave SE: vacant church next to vacant lots |
...had 71 people living on it between 12th and 13th Streets in 1953, according to Polk's City Directory. Today that number is zero. Extend that story over the whole area between 15th and 5th Streets SE and you can see what happened to neighborhood retail.
1st Avenue near downtown is worth the city's attention. Even in its current forlorn state, it's outperforming the big box stores on the edge of town.
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE, 2020-24
Finding a formula that works for 1st Avenue near downtown would definitely help sustain the adjacent neighborhoods; if it continues to deteriorate, it will drag them down and create a desolate zone in the core of the city.
Grand Boulevards
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| Peter Calthorpe (swiped from hdrinc.com) |
Last month, at the Congress for the New Urbanism, keynote speaker Peter Calthorpe described his idea of grand boulevards, and this might be a solution for 1st Avenue. Grand boulevards are commercial corridors developed with multifamily residential units and served (at least eventually) by public transit. He pitched it as a solution to the housing shortage more than a solution to declining corridors, but it is reported we do need more housing, and anyhow implementation of grand boulevards requires a declining commercial corridor in which to implement them.
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| 1530: Closed McDonald's by closed Hy-Vee |
(Cedar Rapids residents will at least be familiar with Calthorpe's firm, HDR, which designed the trails on Mt. Trashmore near Czech Village.)
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| Calthorpe's presentation at CNU: more focused on housing shortage than under-performing streets |
Calthorpe envisions mid-rise buildings with about 100 units, so fairly large, mostly market-rate with maybe 15 percent reserved for affordable prices. (Too high a percentage discourages developers.) As much as missing middle and accessory dwelling units are steps in the right direction, the grand boulevard concept is the only way to get a lot of buildings at scale with private financing. (Governments can't afford to subsidize all the housing that needs to be built, he says.)
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| Kingston Pointe, 515 2nd Av SW, has 18 units on half an acre, but we could go a good bit denser |
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| Another model: Ashton Flats, 217 7th Av SW |
The 1st Avenue Grand Boulevard
About 3250 feet worth of 1st Avenue is under study from 12th to 17th Streets, or a total of 30 acres on both sides of the street. If half of that territory is available for redevelopment, that would mean 900 or 1000 dwelling units (at 60+ per acre), which could be like, what, 2500-3000 residents? (Note that I'm not counting potential properties on A and 2nd Avenues, or farther up 1st.)
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| 1225: long-vacant office building on lonely block across from Coe College campus |
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| 1344: Not picking on anyone's business, but this close to downtown? |
2500-3000 new people living along 1st Avenue will generate more foot traffic for businesses.
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| 1271: Opening of Cafe Allez has been attended by long frustrating delays |
These people would need a lot of groceries, for one thing. Their presence on the street would reduce car speeds and crime while increasing liveliness (which can only help attract students to my former employer, Coe College). They would improve the current demand for public transit. "Once you've got a ribbon of development," says Calthorpe, "You can backfill transit along the way."
Transit available to backfill includes the #5 bus along 1st Avenue, which already runs every 15 minutes, and could be extended to evening service; there could also be a north-south route, say an enhanced route #6, connecting Wellington Heights (and Oak Hill Jackson?) to the Coe and Mt. Mercy campuses up to commercial districts to the north.
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| Passengers wait for the #6 at Coe College bus shelter, November 2022: the bus stop for the #5 on 1st Avenue is visible in the background (Google Earth screenshot) |
Constructing all these apartments creates questions about parking (where and how much?) and driveways (open to 1st Avenue or side streets?). I think these are important but resolvable questions. For the record, Calthorpe wants no minimum parking requirements, but that's not the same as no parking at all. Anyway, the conversation should start with how we want to live, not where we are going to park.
1st Avenue is also a state highway (Business US 151 & SR 922), so civilizing the street itself to slow cars and encourage cycling and walking will require cooperation with the Iowa Department of Transportation. Alexandria, Virginia was able to work this out for King Street, and IDOT is trying to narrow highway right-of-ways through other towns, so I'm encouraged to hope they'll work with us.
SEE ALSO
"Crossing Cedar Rapids' Busiest Intersections: 1st Avenue," 8 August 2023
Martin Pedersen, "Peter Calthorpe Has a Plan for Building More Housing in California," Arch Daily, 7 April 2023
Robert Steuteville, "Grand Boulevards Would Solve the Housing Crisis, Peter Calthorpe Says," Public Square: A CNU Journal, 24 June 2024
Calthorpe's 2017 TED talk, "Seven Principles for Building Better Cities" (14:21)
