Hiawatha is moving ahead on plans for a Town Center

HIAWATHA - This city-suburb sitting between Cedar Rapids and Robins has been planning and working to create a Town Center for more than 15 years.

The effort now has reached a critical point, and some businesses that may be in the way of City Hall's vision for the heart of the city are on edge about it.

The City Council on Wednesday will consider establishing three new zoning districts along the city's main corridor of N. Center Point Road, districts that bring with them proposed prohibitions against certain kinds of businesses in what Mayor Tom Theis on Tuesday called "our new core."

A special City Hall study committee has been studying the creation of the new zoning districts for several months.

Theis said the City Council hasn't settled on a final list of types of businesses that might be excluded from the corridor in the future. He said a more detailed plan for the N. Center Point Road will emerge in the months ahead once the new zoning districts are established.

For now, too, the mayor said businesses will be able to stay put, and he added, "We don't kick anybody out."

At the same time, he said certain existing businesses and homes will be purchased along the way. The city very well may try to purchase some property, he said.

Business tenants in a small commercial strip called Lantern Square on Tuesday said they suspect that their shops near the N. Center Point Road, Robins Road and Emmons Street intersection will be purchased and the property demolished.

Jason Evans, owner of Neon Dragon Tattoo and Body Piercing in Lantern Square, said Tuesday that he is not opposed to improvements to the corridor and he said he doesn't even mind being forced from his current spot in Lantern Square. However, the proposed prohibitions in the new zoning districts do not permit tattoo and body art shops at new locations in the Center Point Road corridor, and he's not happy about that.

Such a prohibition likely will force him to move his business into Cedar Rapids, and he said he wants to stay in Hiawatha where he lives and his children go to school.

Brian Fanton, owner of BE's Coins/Hiawatha Coin Shoppe, has been in Lantern Square since 1998 and he said he wants any changes in the coming Town Center area to have a place for his shop no matter what is demolished along the way.

"This is the prime area in the whole city," Fanton, who is chairman of the city's Board of Adjustment, said. "This is it. That's why we're here."

Fanton has a photo of Hiawatha from 1947 that shows few commercial buildings along N. Center Point Road. One, though, in place in the photo is the building he is in now. The Quonset hut that was across the street in the 1947 photo is now gone as is a mobile home court behind his business.

Fanton's file folder on the city's Town Center concept shows City Hall discussions about the idea stretching back to 1995.

"It's not like this popped up overnight," he said.

Mayor Theis said the thought is that private developers will take an interest in the Town Center area and invest in it and in the N. Center Point Road corridor from Blairs Ferry Road to Boyson Road.