Downtown Cedar Rapids skywalk system gets a final segment

CEDAR RAPIDS - Millions of dollars have been invested over nearly 40 years to tie together 15 blocks of downtown Cedar Rapids' biggest employers, destinations and parking ramps through skywalks.

Users tout their value in cold or wet weather, but others say the skywalks remain an uninviting maze.

'I'd get so lost,” said Lita York, of Cedar Rapids, who recently started working downtown and doesn't use the system. 'Where do you even start?”

The skywalk system was once integral to Cedar Rapids's downtown strategy as malls enticed shoppers with their climate control. But that strategy has long since fallen out of favor as shoppers and retailers left downtown anyway.

Still, the city is adding one final piece to its elevated labyrinth, another nod to the need for downtown employees to get to their cars.

The City Council this month awarded Miron Construction Co., of Cedar Rapids, a $1.6 million contract to add about a block's worth of skywalk from the Convention Center Ramp, 361 First Ave. SE, to the adjacent U.S. Bank project. Plans call for the walkway project to begin this winter and be complete by Aug. 1. A federal surface transportation grant pays for $1.4 million of it.

Once a tool intended to enhance the downtown shopping experience and compete for customers and retailers as indoor malls became popular, the skywalks are now seen as a threat to downtown commerce instead.

The first skywalk segment went from the U.S. Bank Building across Third Street SE to Theatre Cedar Rapids in 1963, said Mark Stoffer Hunter, historian for The History Center. The network began expanding in earnest in the late 1970s and early 1980s to compete with Westdale Mall, which opened in 1979, and Lindale Mall, which converted from open-air to enclosed in 1982.

The skywalks created a climate-controlled space linking retail hubs, such as the Armstrong Centre and Coventry Gardens Mall, as an alternative to malls.

'It was designed to keep people coming to shop in downtown rather than Lindale and Westdale,” Stoffer Hunter said, noting Minneapolis and Des Moines served as inspirations.

It seemed to work at first, but not for long. Retail began rapidly abandoning downtown by the mid-1980s and throughout the 1990s, he said.

As business suffered, skywalk stakeholders and city officials struggled with getting property owners to pay and determine who should manage it.

The skywalk still is seen as a 'valuable asset,” said Doug Neumann, executive director of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance. But now it's for the downtown workforce, and the focus is on connecting parking ramps to major employers.

'Over time, communities came to view skywalks as detrimental to downtown,” Neumann said. 'It hides what we have downtown. It takes people off downtown streets. It hides the vibrancy.”

The Economic Alliance manages the skywalks for the city, which owns sections over the streets, and contracts Park Cedar Rapids, which also operates the city's parking facilities, to handle upkeep.

The annual skywalk budget is about $250,000, mainly for maintenance, cleaning supplies and utilities, said Jon Rouse, general manager of Park Cedar Rapids. Last year, $132,000 was spent on heating, ventilation and air conditioning system replacement, roof repairs and replacement, flooring and window replacement, he said.

Neumann said planners debated whether the latest addition was the right thing to do, given the current philosophy.

'A lot of places are largely abandoning skywalks,” Neumann said. 'We support the skywalk system being maintained. We are not looking to take it down, but we are not looking to extend it.”

Encouraging skywalk-level shopping or restaurants like the more extensive Des Moines system isn't in the cards, Neumann said.

'Our philosophy now is they are not visitor amenities,” he added. 'It would be a very confusing system to put a visitor into.”

Indeed, at street level, virtually no signs direct people where to access the skywalks right above their heads.

'There's an entrance right here, but you wouldn't even know it's there,” said Tyler Freye, who works in the Alliant Tower, 200 First St. SE.

He's learned the system and appreciates it, but early on after taking a job downtown, he got so lost he went down to the street to get where he was going, he said.

The skywalk system runs in an S-shape with several spurs through private office buildings and over streets between First and Fifth avenues SE and First and Fifth streets SE.

The existing skywalks connect the Convention Center Ramp to the DoubleTree Hotel, U.S. Cellular Center, convention center and Five Seasons Parkade. The new addition will allow walkers to access to network that connects the Alliant Tower, United Fire Group, Hibu, the Cedar Rapids Public Library, TrueNorth and the Ground Transportation Center, and more downtown parking ramps among other locations.

Throughout the day, people - primarily employees at those locations - use the skywalks to get from their vehicles to their offices. Small groups of co-workers or individuals with earbuds also the enclosed system that spans more than a mile for exercise.

On the skywalk level, a handful of entrances for small businesses, such as law firms, financial services and business coaches, are interspersed with windowless doors to offices of larger businesses. A few pieces of art sit on display and illuminated signs provide direction from one building to the next.

A handful of ground-level restaurants have a stairwell or elevator that drops down from the skywalk to a back entrance.

In one section parallel to Second Avenue SE where Four Oaks has painted pictures of children playing, a windowless steel door has a sign with business hours and a menu on the wall beside it for Need Pizza, 207 Second Ave. SE. If you push it open, a dark and narrow stairwell leads to the back entrance of the pizza restaurant.

Bob Wegner, co-owner of Need Pizza, said a group of regulars uses the skywalk to reach the restaurant and the business tries to market to skywalk traffic. It's nice being connected, but he thinks it's underutilized.

'There's a lot of potential, a lot of room for improvement,” Wegner said, suggesting someone create a smartphone wayfinding app as they have in Des Moines.

Prairie Soup Co., 425 Second St. SE, near the Ground Transportation Center, is one of the few customer-facing businesses on the skywalk.

It gets steady business from skywalk traffic, and things picks up when it's cold and raining, owner Maysa Salem said. Still, with no signs at ground level, people struggle to find the place.

She recalls one older couple trying to come for lunch. She was on the phone with them giving directions, but they ultimately never showed.

'It's hard for people to find us,” she said.

Steve Emerson, a local developer, plans to leverage the skywalk once he finishes renovating the 323 Building at 323 Third St. SE, which will have a restaurant and another business on the first floor and 32 apartments on floors 2 through 6. The skywalk runs past the second floor, so he plans to pay for a connection.

He doesn't know if it will be a selling point, but it is worth a try.

'Take someone that works at Hibu. They could truly not have to use their car or go outside,” he said. 'You take those 32 units in that building and it gives them one additional opportunity.”

l Comments: (319) 339-3177; brian.morelli@thegazette.com