CNU Diary 2024: Restorative Urbanism

 

Cincinnatus, on the Ohio River Trail

Wednesday, May 15

Jane and I are in Cincinnati for the 32nd annual Congress for the New Urbanism. After an all-day drive, we got here about 8:00 in the evening, too late to register or join the Opening Night Party, but I'll be raring to go tomorrow. We're staying at the Homewood Suites by Hilton in downtown Cincinnati, a couple blocks from the conference site at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza. 

Hilton Netherland Plaza

We walked over there this evening, and checked out a couple potential coffee locales. Jane took some pictures at Fountain Square.

The first thing I noticed about downtown Cincinnati is that most intersections have a NO TURN ON RED sign. Urbanists tend to dislike right-turn-on-red, which was mandated nationwide when I was in high school in order to save on energy use and air pollution from idling cars. It's not that we like either of those, either, but that turning cars add dangers to walking (or riding bicycles).

Thursday, May 16

President Mallory Baches welcomes the convention

What I love about CNU, both the conference and the organization, is the inherent optimism. We are full of hope. I am personally inclined to despair, and I'm sure everyone at this meeting has had considerable experience with their good ideas being rejected by the city council or the public or their boss. And yet, we remain hopeful that the problems of today's cities can be solved and we are the ones who know how to do it. It was this sort of humanism that fueled the Enlightenment, declared Independence, and wrote the Constitution.

(from L) Peter Calthorpe, Aftab Pureval, Ellen Dunham Jones

The mainstage address was given by Peter Calthorpe, co-founder of CNU and co-author (with William Fulton) of The Regional City (Island Press, 2001), one of the first books I read on the subject of urbanism. He talked up Grand Boulevards as the solution to both the housing crisis and the decline of retail strips. Grand Boulevards involve building multifamily units along commercial corridors and near transit, which has worked (says he) in Minneapolis since 2017, as well as a 43 mile long development along the El Camino Highway in California's Silicon Valley. Once you've got a ribbon of development, he says, you can "backfill" transit along the way, by which he means Bus Rapid Transit, since "we can't afford" light rail (in a tone indicating possible irony).

Calthorpe presenting

He was followed on the stage by Aftab Pureval, mayor of Cincinnati, who welcomed the conference and proclaimed today to be Restorative Urbanism Day.  Pureval represents the paradigmatic American dream, as his parents immigrated to the United States from India, his mom having come to India as a refugee from Tibet. But, he says, that dream is "becoming further and further away" for many Americans, so he hopes through policy changes like BRT and zoning to "desegregate the city so there are no wealthy or disinvested neighborhoods, just Cincinnati neighborhoods."

Attendees at the opening event in the Hall of Mirrors

At 10:30 I attended a talk jointly given by Victor Dover, who runs a planning firm in Coral Gables, and Ashleigh Walton, an architect with a firm in Pittsburgh, billed as a "new urbanism starter course" but focused on this year's theme of restorative urbanism. Ashleigh Walton discussed restorative urbanism in terns of reforming "detrimental regulations" that shape our cities and that inhibit walkability, housing affordability and supply, and adaptation to climate change, exemplified by so many "blown out downtowns" across the country. 

We were invited to eat lunch in Fountain Square. I bought a Grabbo's sundae at a food truck called Wild Side Experience that advertised "caveman food." The Grabbo's sundae involves barbecue chips, pulled pork, lettuce, and sour cream, but not ice cream.

Caveman food: Grabbo's sundae from Wild Side Experience

I didn't converse with any urbanists during my lunch, but spent a happy time people watching. Fountain Square is amazing on a nice day. It reminded me of the Trg Republike in Belgrade.

Fountain Square, downtown Cincinnati

For comparison: Trg Republike, Belgrade, May 2022

 

In the afternoon, I went on a streetcar-and-walking tour of the Over the Rhine district just north of downtown Cincinnati, which used to be a German area, then a poverty-stricken area, and now is gentrifying. 

Typical Italianate style building on Elm Street:
1st floor retail, tall windows, little chunky tabs at top

Race Street: built to the sidewalk, with breezeways so
residents didn't enter through the 1st floor store

porch at rear of beer garden on Vine Street, used for public speeches

Hanging out in Washington Park on mosaic-encrusted bench

This morning, as soon as I walked into the conference hotel, I ran into Jeff Wozencraft, a planner with the City of Cedar Rapids, and as far as either of us knows the only other person from Cedar Rapids who is here. Given the nature of conferences, I figured that would be our only encounter, but as it turned out, we were at the same happy hour event in the evening, sponsored by the Michigan and Midwest CNU chapters and held at a Unitarian Church-turned-event space called the Transept. Jeff and I were joined at the event by a lively bunch from Sarnia, Ontario. Maybe Cedar Rapids and Sarnia could be sister cities!

The Transept, 1205 Elm Street

As part of the happy hour event, I "debated" Eric Schertizing of Lansing, Michigan, on the value of historic preservation. When he's not debating me, Eric is executive director of the Michigan Association of Land Banks. We had an interesting conversation, though audible to very few in the super-live former sanctuary with a lot of side chatter happening. One of us "won," as determined by audience cheers, though I couldn't tell who.

Friday, May 17

Prepping for bike tour

Happy Bike to Work Day! Today I and a couple dozen other bikers braved the rain to tour the riverfront trails in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. 

Breakfast on the Bridge

We began with Breakfast on the Bridge, a 15-year-old Bike to Work Day tradition on the Purple People Bridge between Cincinnati and Newport, Kentucky. We got there as they were preparing to wrap up, but there were still a lot of people there. I had some complementary coffee and chatted up some folk from an architecture firm and from the transit agency. I also scored a couple clementine oranges, which a sympathetic fellow traveler stored for me in her bag.

Entering Kentucky
(which starts at the river's edge per US Supreme Court in 1980)

View of the Ohio River from the Purple People Bridge

We were out a little over two hours, riding across the Ohio River twice, and sampling trails on both sides.

New and probably pricey riverfront apartments in Cincinnati

Tree canopy over the Ohio River trail

  

Must be a barge coming through!
(behind it is where the Licking River flows into the Ohio)

Covington: Boyhood home of Daniel Beard, founder of Boy Scouts of America

Covington murals, religion section

Covington murals, baseball section

The Roebling suspension bridge was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge
(Pro tip: Don't tell anyone here it looks like it was inspired by Brooklyn!)

 

Riverside Drive, Covington: End of the trail (for now)

Ohio River Trail, Cincinnati: bike channel on staircase

6th Street, near the bike shop: One more mural, baseball section

This year, unlike in 2023, my e-bike worked, though I mostly found the electric boost inconvenient and had it off except for steep hills. My biggest problem this year was finding a helmet that fit; a couple people had brought their own, and maybe I should do that next year. One of our guides not only had his own helmet, but brought his own shade as well!

Worn by one of our tour guides: Da Brim. I need one.

I met up with Jane for most of the afternoon. We had lunch in the Over-the-Rhine District...

Iris Book Cafe

...then went to the Underground Railroad Museum.

Underground Railroad Museum entrance

I returned to the conference for a late afternoon session on small developers, presented by Joe Klare of Covington-based Catalytic Fund and developer Brian Boland. The Catalytic Fund provides loans that bridge the gap between what a bank is willing to lend and what a small developer needs to make a project work. I sat with a woman from Portland who works on parking issues. She asked how they were able to overcome public concerns about parking with their projects. The presenters were more sanguine than she was (or I am).

In the evening, Jane and I went to a brewpub across from the Cincinnati Reds' stadium, then heard live music (Indie night) in Fountain Square.

Saturday, May 18

The conference rang down today with a closing address by Carlos Moreno, the Paris-based academic credited with the concept of the 15-minute city. I bought his new book today [The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet (Wiley, 2024)] at Roebling's onsite store, along with Megan Kimble's City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways (Crown, 2024).

starting the day at the excellent Deeper Roots coffeeshop downtown

I also took in a couple of panel sessions, a presentation by Brooklyn-based planner (and political scientist!) Jerome Barth on what makes public spaces successful, and a group report on a neighborhood-led investment plan for the West End area of St. Louis. Both have some things to say to Cedar Rapids, and I will probably return to them in future posts.

Jerome Barth

West End/Visitation Park project panel

Not only that, but I took a couple of quizzes created by Emerging New Urbanists, who obviously remember the good old days of Facebook quizzes. To the question of What kind of urbanist are you? I got the result history and cultural urbanist. To the question of Which transect zone are you? I got the result T6-Urban Core. Those may both be more aspirational than actual, but I maintain all such quizzes are inherently valid.

Carlos Moreno

Moreno started with natural disasters and other stressors caused by climate change--one estimate had $38 trillion in damages annually from extreme weather--but shifted to the broader question: What kind of city do we want to live in? Car dependency has, he said, led to living and working under constant stress, long daily trips, lost access to opportunities and social interactions, misused buildings, and overall lower quality of life. His alternative is "human-oriented urbanism" or "social circularity"--no wonder it's come to be called "the 15-minute city" although he gets frustrated with the focus on the number "15"--which includes proximity to essential services, organic density, mixed uses, quality public spaces, efficient public transport, and three other things I didn't get. Cities can promote design that delivers these goods while discouraging design that doesn't. I'll have more to say about Moreno when I read his book this summer!

Next year in Providence!: Board chair-elect Frank Starkey closes the conference

Evening entertainment: Cincinnati May Festival concert at the Music Hall in OTR

SEE ALSO: "CNU Diary 2023," 1 June 2023

 

"Charter Awards 2024" (Congress for the New Urbanism)

Addison Del Mastro, "New Urbanism and Urbanist Media," The Deleted Scenes, 21 May 2024

I never did see Michael Jackson...

Bike to Work Week 2024

 

Clouds over New Bohemia

Monday, May 13

Bike to Work Week began on this rainy Monday, though the Week had already been proclaimed (pre-proclaimed?). Mayor Pro Tem Ann Poe read the proclamation at Meet Me at the Market last Thursday evening, when it was also raining.

City Council member Ann Poe (left) with the proclamation

Unlike last year, there were no exhibitors present, which was surely understandable (though it turned out to set the tone for the week).

Cloudy skies prepare to bring rain over New Bohemia

A few hardy bikers thumbed their noses and their front tires at the weather, and joined in a brief ride after the proclamation.

Ride leader Nikki Northrop with some true believers

Bike to Work Week should be the opportunity for some reflection. The City of Cedar Rapids website is justifiably proud of being named a Bicycle Friendly Community in 2014 by the League of American Bicyclists, and our growing network of trails and protected bike lanes. But we're not rated 27/100 by People for Bikes (13th out of 17 Iowa cities) for nothing. (For more on the ratings nationwide, see Ionescu 2024.) Cedar Rapids is very spread out, with danger along any number of streets and at intersections. How much safer/non-car-dependent do we want to be, and what are we willing to do to achieve that?

Tiffany Owens Reed of Waco, Texas (People for Bikes rating 12/100), who hosts the "Bottom-Up Revolution" podcast for Strong Towns, had a brilliant post early this month (Reed 2024). She challenged cities to use Bike to Work Week to help achieve greater and broader ridership, for all the reasons we say we would like people to bike:

1. Pay attention to why people who could bike don't (safety, mostly)
2. Note that using bikes for errands and especially to get to work is feasible only when destinations are close enough
3. We need to devote resources to talking to a broad cross-section of people, and experimenting with pop-up bike lanes and street closures that are politically risky.

In the meantime, we have trail pit stops, which have been a great tradition at least since I first did Bike to Work Week in 2014. Two were planned today, one downtown and one at Collins Aerospace. The morning ones were cancelled due to impending weather...

...as noted on the CirtyofCR.con/BikeCR website, which I forgot to check. I took this picture of where it would have been...

May 2024

May 2023

...and pushed on to my summer office in the Geonetric building, happily arriving before the rain began in earnest. I noticed a few other bikers on the streets as I rode, and a few bikes sheltering in the parking garages.

Rain threatened in the afternoon, too, but the front swung north, so we got to do the pit stops. 

pit stop swag, 2nd Avenue SE

Seth Gunnerson of the city's development department was staffing the table. He did not wish to be part of the picture, which is understandable, since we wouldn't want to distract your attention from the snacks and swag with Seth's brooding presence.

Seth and I have known each other for years, so we had some time to chat; understandably, given the dire forecast, there weren't a lot of riders along the trail through downtown. We also provided snacks to a woman with a thick (Mexican?) accent who was on her way to the bus stop. There was a reporter from the Gazette there for awhile who took my name so perhaps I will be part of the story. No such thing as bad publicity in the blogging business, I say.

There was also a traffic lady who ticketed Seth's SUV when he wasn't looking. The SUV was needed because Seth was selflessly hauling all the swag and snacks; the ticket means he was even more selfless than he'd planned to be.

Here's how my Bingo card stands after one day. I counted "stopped at a morning pit stop" because they didn't have a square for "stopped at where the morning pit stop would have been had it not been cancelled." My conscience and I will be discussing this for awhile.

Tuesday, May 14

I had a complicated day in front of me, and when a rainshower greeted me as I left the house, I decided to ditch the bike and drive instead. I feel like I've profaned the sabbath or something, but commuter cycling is complicated enough, and sometimes rain is the straw that breaks the camel's back. (Besides cycling and writing, I also enjoy mixing metaphors!) "You don't have to bike to work every day," Nikki Northrop assures us.

So I drove to my summer office in the Geonetric Building, then walked downtown--the showers had stopped by this time, though for my apostasy I surely deserved to be drenched--to meet my friend John for coffee and to do some power-walking through the skywalks.

The first Bike to Work Week event of the day was the Bike to Lunch Business Challenge, located at "New Bo City Market food trucks or anywhere convenient for you." This is what the market looked like a little past noon:

Trucks, no bikes: Food Truck Tuesday at the Market

My choice: pupusa from Los Ortegas Pupuseria

Yes, there are food trucks, but nothing at all redolent of Bike to Work Week. 

Where the information stands were last year

I don't know what to say about this. Is this, really, the best we can do? It made me sad.

There was more sad to be made, though, even as they day turned gorgeous. I went home to get my bike, and rode about three miles to the address of the Chain Reaction Bike Hub, where there was to be an event at 4:00. I know this is a real place, because it was written up in the Gazette, and a Coe student bought the first bike there. But "1010 3rd Avenue SW" is some sort of body shop. This is what it looks like from the front:

1010 3rd Avenue SW

I went around the building to see if there was another entrance--no. There were a handful of men, who either ignored me or looked at me funny. I realized I was prowling private property, so I returned to the sidewalk for a few minutes, then left.

On the offchance that it was a misprint, I rode to1010 3rd Street SW, which doesn't exist, because it would be on the embankment that leads up to I-380.

"1010 3rd Street SW"

It was nice to get out on my bike anyway, though even in this "bike friendly" city I still feel like an intruder on the streets. (And even in the separated bike lanes--today I had my first experience of an e-bike rider ringing his bell at me in hopes of getting around me, which he eventually did.)

In any event, day two of Bike to Work Week was a nothingburger. I got a couple more squares marked off on my bingo card.

Wednesday, May 15

There's more to come in the remaining days of Bike to Work Week--morning and afternoon pit stops, the memorial Ride of Silence, a bike rodeo in the Geonetric parking lot, and the Friday evening afterparty--but I will be somewhere else. I leave today for the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) meeting in Cincinnati, which will be fuel for another post. Someone else will have to win the prizes at the Handlebar Happy Hour.

May 2024: On my way to Cincinnati wearing my prize shirt from May 2023
(photo by Jane Nesmith)

Bike to Work Week, and I say this with love, has so far been uninspired. I will admit the weather has not been our friend, for the most part, but weather happens, and it's our choice what we do about that. Kristen Jeffers, in the excellent piece cited above, charges towns with ignoring serious issues in favor of self-congratulation, but we can't even summon the energy to do that. There are reasons to do this--promote and encourage alternatives to cars, celebrate what we've achieved so far--but the city can only do that if our leaders care enough to do it well. 

This year's schedule

SEE ALSO:

"Reflections on Bike to Work Week 2023," 22 May 2023

"Bike to Work Week Diary 2023: It's Not Going to Work," 15 May 2023

MPO Ride 2024

 

route map

The Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization, AARP, and other co-sponsors had a glorious day for the annual MPO Ride, a 14-mile loop from Bever Park to the Prairie Park Fishery and back. It was my first MPO Ride since 2017. That year we had nearly 50 riders exploring trail improvements from here to Robins; this year we more than doubled that number (120, according to Roman Kiefer). We were a mighty group.

Gathering at Bever Park

Roman Kiefer, MPO transportation planner, with megaphone at the ready

Unlike previous MPO Rides I've attended, when we cycled from project site to project site, this year we did a non-stop ride followed by an informational session back at Bever Park about stuff in the works--projects that were not on the route.

Our route took us downtown, then down 3rd Street to New Bohemia and out on Otis Road. We "took a lane" in town, even when there was a bike lane, since there were so many of us. I imagine drivers were surprised to find that many bikers crossing their route to work or Saturday morning errands. These rides tend to be well-publicized within the cycling community, but not so much to the general public. Were I riding solo, my experience would be different, as would the drivers', but it shows that getting to the trail can be a significant effort.

Approaching 10th Street on 3rd Avenue

We were briefly on a trail at the Prairie Park Fishery, then at Indian Creek Nature Center we got on the Sac and Fox Trail. That got us almost all the way back to Bever Park. From Trailridge and Indiandale to Bever and 34th it's a long painful hill, but we made it. Here the challenge to connect to the trail is not traffic--though once you're back on Bever Avenue it can be aggressive--but landforms. They, too, can be deterrents to riding.

In all we were on streets with sharrows, streets with bike lanes, Otis Road which has no markings, hard surface trail, and packed gravel trail. The packed gravel trails had suffered a little with the recent rains.

riders on Otis Road near Indian Creek Nature Center

On the Sac and Fox Trail, approaching Rosedale Road

View of Indian Creek from the Sac and Fox Trail

One bit of infrastructure that was at least new to me was a wide sidewalk along East Post Road from the Sac and Fox trailhead to Trailridge Road.

Along East Post Road approaching Indian Creek

Back at Bever Park, we heard about Connect CR plans for Cedar Lake and the Sleeping Giant Bridge.  Part of the rebuilding of Czech Village will be a reimagined B Street that will be part of a Lightline Loop connecting to the main north-south trail. 

What was formerly B Street will be a pedestrian "promenade" from 16th to 18th Avenues, and then a woonerf from 18th to 21st.  There will be more development, including residences, a "destination park," and a new roundhouse. It's nice to see some creative thinking here, though I have my doubts about woonerfs, particularly with all the motor vehicle traffic at the destination park.

So, it was a little exercise and a little information, on a beautiful day, clearly oriented to recreational cycling rather than commuting. But our recreational trail opportunities have come a long way, and to have this ride practically at my fingertips (I live blocks from Bever Park) says something significant. So does the huge number of participants!

Talking downtown retail

 

Two years ago, at another one of the Gazette's invaluable Business Breakfasts, Andy Schumacher noted that when his restaurant Cobble Hill opened in 2013, he noticed that downtown office workers went home at 5 and that only sometimes would another crowd come downtown to replace them in the evening. He thought that more housing, at a variety of price points, might help to generate the round-the-clock buzz of a 24-hour downtown.

I thought about Andy's comment this morning, when we gathered to hear another panel talk downtowns in the Geonetric Building cafe. While today's speakers were focused on the retail sector, on this post-Euclidean blog, retail establishments are one element of a diverse neighborhood ecosystem. Context matters. "We're all in this together," as Red Green used to say. 

Today's panel (L to R): 
Tasha Lard (Iowa City South District SSMID), Teresa Jensen (Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust), Deanna Trumbull (Iowa River Landing), Mark Seckman (Marion Economic Development Corporation), Betsy Potter (Iowa City Downtown District)

Moderator Zach Kucharski, executive editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, began by asking panelists what was working. There was a variety of good news to report: downtown Iowa City has filled all available retail space; Uptown Marion has a "coolness" that's attracting retail stores and restaurants; Iowa River Landing in Coralville is enjoying "great" traffic and sales; the city government in Cedar Rapids is working with downtown businesses to increase customer traffic; and the new South District in Iowa City is promoting and creating opportunities. Both Tasha Lard from the South District and Mark Seckman from Marion celebrated their working relationships with their cities' governments.

The retailers' concerns included needing space to grow (downtown Iowa City), persistently high interest rates, finding workers, the ongoing competition from online retailers, and in some cases shop owners' unhelpful closing hours. When Zach Kucharski asked about the importance of amenities, parking came up high on the list of customer concerns. The "place making" model of Iowa River Landing does anticipate visitors will park once and walk around the area, and downtown Iowa City has an unusual situation adjacent to the University of Iowa campus. Still, everyone had something to say about parking.

Kucharski's question about amenities had offered parking, events, and housing as examples. There were a number of successful events mentioned, Marion celebrated their new public library building and renovated central park, and Teresa Jensen brought a list of suggestions for downtown Cedar Rapids: redoing the 2nd Avenue bridge, occasionally closing 3rd Street, widening variety of live music, coworking spaces, food trucks, and more murals. Nobody talked about housing.

Teresa Jensen responds to a question from moderator Zach Kucharski

Which brings us back to Adam Schumacher's comment from two years ago. While a number of panelists did talk about "24/7" retail areas, and working to appeal to different crowds at different times of the day, pretty much everyone took their working environment as external, something beyond their control. As a result, with the exception of Iowa City's campus-adjacent downtown, retailers were focused on bringing in visitors from elsewhere in their cities--hence the need for parking and big one-off events. 

To be fair, the panelists mostly represented support organizations with little if any power even over types of stores or closing hours, much less their cities' land use and housing policies. Any influence they do possess is persuasive, through conversations with entrepreneurs, city officials, and citizen-shoppers. Still, they could be using those conversations to promote the type of urban context in which local businesses could be sustainably thriving. (Continuing to be fair, I was not able to ask the panelists about this; their answers could have been illuminating, and I surely owe each of them a shot at a guest appearance on Holy Mountain.)

A 24-hour downtown area that mixes retail, office, entertainment, and residential uses is the most economically, environmentally and fiscally resilient approach. Parking is a game at which you never can win, because unless we want to become a nation of big-box stores and strip malls, the appetite for more parking spaces is insatiable (cf. Grabar 2023)--like the candy the witch gave the boy in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The core of Cedar Rapids is replete with surface parking, such that one can walk from the Geonetric Building to Coe College through parking lots. (This is actually true--I've done it.) And while Betsy Potter from Iowa City suggested "parking education" might be a way to mitigate this insatiable demand, one engages in that at one's own risk.

Downtown Cedar Rapids may have 99 problems, but insufficient parking is not one
(parking areas in red; screen shot of project by former Coe College student)

A 24-hour downtown has vibe that hasn't been killed by swaths of parking. Many of your customers are right there, pretty much all the time, so you don't have to lure them in with events or hope that enough of them are in the mood today to get in their cars and "go shopping." A store I can walk to, especially one that sells the necessities of life, is part of my neighborhood, to which I have more connection than some website. Stores we don't have to drive to are stores at which we don't have to find parking, a load off our minds as well as a load off the city streetscape.

But Cedar Rapids, Coralville, and Marion, and even much of Iowa City, are far from being this sort of town. A lot has to change, both physically and psychologically. In the meantime, retailers and those who support them have to operate in the towns we have built over the last 75 years. I understand that. Whether you're in sales or politics, you have to be responsive to public demand, which is largely shaped by how people have learned to navigate the world as it is. But some gentle nudges in the right direction would serve us all well.

The next Business Breakfast will be in Iowa City on July 9; they return to Cedar Rapids September 10.

10th anniversary post: Preservation or demolition?

protest at the Hach Building, May 2014

(5/1/2024) On May 12, 2014, the Hach Building at 1326 2nd St SE was demolished. The local preservationist group, Save CR Heritage, had spared no effort in trying to save the 1901 building, without success; they spent its last weekend protesting to no avail.

The Hach Building had last been used as a tavern, but had been badly damaged in the 2008 flood and neglected since. It was owned by the Melsha family, which also owns the delightful and historic Little Bo's a block away on 16th Avenue.

Rear view of the damaged Hach Building, May 2014

Ten years later, the property remains empty, though eventual development is part of the long-term New Bo Action Plan. Kickstand, a bar with a prodigious bike rack that is often full in the summer, has gone in across the street, so the New Bohemia neighborhood's lively bar scene continues to grow.

The former Ambroz Recreation Center, fall 2023

Ten years later, the expected demolition of another Cedar Rapids historic landmark has aroused opposition. Ambroz Recreation Center, 2000 Mt Vernon Rd SE, was built as Buchanan School in 1920 (Hadish 2024). From 1975-2016, it was used by the City of Cedar Rapids for community events like summer arts programs. (My sons as children took classes here like Art from the Junk Drawer.) It has been vacant since (Tabick 2024). 

parking lot entrance

view across 21st Street

On April 23, 2024, the Cedar Rapids City Council approved Steve Emerson of Aspect Architecture Design as site developer. It was the City's fourth effort to find a buyer/developer for the building. Emerson envisioned a four-story, 52-unit apartment complex that got neighbors' backs up big time. Emerson has said his firm's plan is subject to change. 

Rendering of Aspect Inc proposal (from Hadish 2024)

The existing Ambroz building was lovely and homey when my boys were taking classes here 15-20 years ago; while it has apparently deteriorated beyond repair, the City has not considered another proposal, by Jim Hobart of Hobart Historic Restoration, that would have rehabilitated the current building and added townhomes nearby. "It's well worth saving," said Hobart (Hadish 2024). [It's not clear to me that Hobart formally submitted this proposal to the city, based on conversations I've had.]

I am not, strictly speaking, a preservationist. Development of a place should never be frozen, because sometimes the highest, best, most publicly valuable use of land is new construction. We would take places out of a process of evolution by trying to hold them forever at a particular stage that may no longer be adaptive (see Del Mastro 2024). But I do value historic preservation, because where appropriate it provides people with orientation, interest, and a sense of place; too much demolition leaves you with architectural and spiritual emptiness. As one writer characterized a grand scheme of Le Corbusier, the rigorously superimposed plan cleared the land of all signs of humanity and centuries of urban culture (Woudstra 2014).

The Ambroz building was built as a neighborhood school on a two-lane street that became a four-lane street and is in the process of being widened still further.

under construction, spring 2024

Nearby resident Jennifer Trembath justifiably questioned the context of the new building proposed by Aspect Inc. in her statement to the City Council, but I think she's going to be unhappy whatever happens, because of the widening of Mt. Vernon Road with the increased traffic speed, and noise that will bring.

The Hobart proposal appears to me to develop the property at neighborhood scale, with as much transition between the neighborhood and the new road as can be imagined. So does something like this Atlanta project, but Hobart offers the additional perk of retaining the existing building. 

Hobart's rendering (in Hadish 2024) continues the current two-story brick construction, with parking facing Mt. Vernon Road and buildings built to both 20th and 21st Streets. It would actually soften the large parking lot behind the current building, which stretches from 20th to 21st Streets.

parking lot facing 20th Street

Aspect Inc. (pictured above) shows a four-story building with that weird exterior that's going to scream "2020s" in a few years. What if Aspect built a three-story brick building? Two such buildings exist at the intersection of 16th Street and 3rd and Grande Avenues, and work well in the context of Wellington Heights. How would a somewhat friendlier approach to construction affect people's feelings?

1601 Grande Ave SE

1600 3rd Avenue SE

Another strong argument for preservation is that rents in older buildings are often more affordable than in new construction, providing a broader set of opportunities for residents and entrepreneurs (see Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities [Random House, 1961], ch. 10). In the present case, though, it might well be that the building is too far gone to be renovated cheaply, and new construction might be more economical?

That brings me to a more general concern about preservation in Cedar Rapids (and probably your town as well). The Ambroz Building, the Hach Building, and People's Church, to name three local cases, were historically valuable structures that had arguably deteriorated to the point that their continued existence was no longer economical. While it's tempting to hate on the private owners of the Hach Building, it's worth pointing out that People's Church was a nonprofit and the Ambroz Building (along with any number of gorgeous century-old Cedar Rapids schools that are probably doomed) are owned by local government. Is there a way to prioritize the maintenance dimension of historic preservation such that significant structures aren't continually being demolished?