The Suburbanization of New Bohemia

900 3rd St SE: Loftus Lofts (186 units) under construction

The New Bohemia neighborhood, located on the east side of the Cedar River south of downtown, was largely decimated by the 2008 flood. What had once been an industrial area with some working class housing and artists' studios suddenly became a tabula rasa. When I started spending serious time here in 2016, several historic buildings had been functionally rehabbed, joined by the New Bo City Market in a former factory-warehouse, and the newly constructed Geonetric building. There was also a great deal of open space. 

1014 2nd St SE, 2012: Where the Row Houses are now

That space, so close to the city center, was going to be filled with something, though for years what that something would be was up to the viewer's imagination. So it was possible for to look out over an area dominated by bars and hair salons and touristy shops, and imagine an emerging urban village, where a diversity of residents would find all the necessities of life as well as food and entertainment within convenient walking distance. There was a time when it seemed a highly likely outcome. It wasn't there yet, but that was okay, because New Bohemia was very much a work in progress.

Big plans for New Bohemia: 2019 Action Plan, p. 40

It's still a work in progress, and ten years from now it will still be a work in progress, so we are far from pronouncing a final verdict, even as some of that open space gets filled up. Quite a few residential units, mostly apartments and condominiums, have responded to the gap in housing, with more in process or proposed. 

Adaptive reuse:
Water Tower Place Condominiums, 900 2nd St SE

 

 

Compatible construction:
Row Houses on Second, 1008-1018 2nd St SE

The Cedar Rapids Gazette, in one of the last stories by prized reporter Marissa Payne (cited below), listed a number of ideas in circulation for some of the remaining lots in New Bohemia:

900 3rd St SE: Loftus Lumber site under construction by Conlon Construction, to be five-story mixed-used property including 186 market-rate apartments ranging from studio to (two) two-story lofts. [In the Action Plan, the 10th Avenue side is projected to be a "shared space street."]

Loftus Building, taken from the Cherry Building

1000 block of 2nd St SE: Conlon Construction proposed a 150-room hotel plus 10 townhomes between 2nd Street and the river, across the street from the Row Houses, on what is now part of a long parking lot. [In the Action Plan, this land is projected for apartments.]

Future hotel site? The federal courthouse is in the background

116 16th Av SE: Darryl High wants to build Vesnice, consisting of one six-story residential building (63 units) facing the river and one four-story mixed use building facing 2nd St with 22 residential units above 1443 sq ft of commercial space. [In the Action Plan, this land is projected for apartments.]

1600 and 1700 blocks of 2nd St SE: Chad Pelley has bought land (from Brett "Bo Mac" McCormick), and intends to purchase additional city-owned parcels on both sides of 2nd Street.

View from the riverside trail of the property under construction, 
New Bo Lofts in the distance

Pelley hopes to build a mixed-use development that's heavy on owner-occupied units. Before he acts, he told the Gazette, "I definitely want buy-in from this neighborhood. What are we missing?" [In the Action Plan, this land is projected for townhouses. 2nd Street will be extended to an unnamed cross street, which will run to 4th Street, past a planned Sinclair Plaza.]

Looking towards the river from the cul-de-sac at the end of 2nd St,
National Czech and Slovak Museum in the distance

Besides these, Michael Richards has put the the Matyk Building, which until recently housed the delightful but financially unsustainable Bohemian (1029 3rd Street SE), up for sale. He's asking over $700,000, which is about double the assessed value. Maybe the hope is someone sees the future value of that land surging? And uses it to build... what? (The only reason I can think of that someone would pay double the assessed value for a property is because they believe it would bring more value with a more intensive use.) 

For sale: Matyk Building

While 1st Avenue East empties out, building and occupying are going gangbusters in New Bohemia. Demand is clearly here, not there. Marissa Payne in the Gazette attributes that to "[t]he NewBo District's arts and cultural scene, entertainment options and a mix of restaurants." Community Development Director Jennifer Pratt told the Gazette: "It is a continuation of what we've seen since the reinvestment after the 2008 flood.... We definitely saw in the market that people were interested in walkable neighborhoods. That has just continued to grow" (Payne 2024).

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Friends of New Bohemia are beginning to express anxiety about all the development. A lot of the newest construction has been of the cookie-cutter variety, and some of the proposals are relatively huge. Given that a lot of New Bo's allure relates to its historical character, it should be a no-brainer to insist on compatible form (without going to the extreme of making it a theme park). In the words of the city's Assistant Community Development Director Adam Lindenlaub, "There's an aspect of character that is unique here that you don't see in other parts of the city" (Payne 2024). Beyond that, though, you don't own your view, and when all is working well, the core neighborhoods will be the densest and most valuable in the city.

Inevitably, a lot of the concerns about development in this area center on parking, particularly for major events. If parking is used by residents, where are the rest of supposed to park? they ask. Sigh. It should no longer be debatable that parking is the enemy of vibe, and no place with plenty of parking is worth visiting (see, for example, Grabar 2023). In this car-dependent city, though, we always imagine ourselves one surface parking lot away from paradise. And yet, the parking-concerned are not wrong to sense an issue, because New Bohemia has developed in a way that is heavily dependent on traffic from outside, which in the vast majority of cases is going to arrive by personal car. (So has Downtown. Don't even start me on the casino, which the Gazette reports is now Miss America-approved.)

This, then is the real issue: New Bohemia, though still a work in progress, has become a suburb. It is "walkable," but only for entertainment. Other than that it is a bedroom community. There are few employers. Schools, groceries, hardware, and pharmacies are far away, and bus service is spotty. There isn't a park, though that will change with the Greenway. 

Stoney Point, August 2013: More houses, fewer apartments and bars

The only difference between New Bohemia and, say, the world of Leave It to Beaver, is most of the housing is multifamily and there are a lot of bars. Maybe too many? The closures of Chrome Horse and Bo Mac's are possibly signs that a bar monoculture is not sustainable, particularly when bigger newer ones (like Big Grove in Kingston) inevitably come along.

With apologies to Andres Duany, the transect in Cedar Rapids starts with commercial playgrounds in the center, surrounded by a moat of emptiness (MedQuarter, I-380, the impending casino); beyond these are residential areas, where getting almost anywhere requires a car. Beyond those are greenfields, waiting to be subdivisions, or part of a wider I-380. Maybe all this was inevitable, but it is indeed regrettable. At least the city should stop subsidizing more of this sort of development.

SOURCE: Marissa Payne, "New Development Coming to NewBo," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 7 September 2024, 1A, 10A

SEE ALSO: "More New, Less Bo?" 4 July 2022

"Bridging the Bridge," 26 June 2019

"Envisioning CR I: A 24-Hour Downtown," 1 March 2015