Invitation to Monday, Feb. 15, forum on downtown recovery

The Urban Land Institute had praise for Cedar Rapids downtown flood recovery efforts to date in a report last June and suggested a vision for that recovery. But action, not plans, were needed, the report said.

We want to know if local leaders have embraced that call for bold moves and dedicated leadership. Moreover, we want to know whether economic recovery is going to be part of that flood recovery, so we've organized a public forum.

Consider yourselves invited.

The forum, with The Gazette, KCRG-TV9 and GazetteOnline.com serving as sponsors, will be Monday night, Feb. 15. It's called “Moving Forward in Downtown Cedar Rapids," and scheduled for 7 to 9 o'clock at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art Auditorium, 410 Third Ave. SE. Elevator access to the forum is available at the museum's rear entrance.

A premise behind this forum is that a strong downtown business district is necessary for local economic, cultural, aesthetic and psychological reasons in a city the size of Cedar Rapids. I'm pointing this out in my Sunday, Feb. 14, column in The Gazette newspaper.

Fact is, business and city leaders have thought about downtown revitalization for a long, long time, easdily dating to before the flood.

The Cedar Rapids Downtown District organization has been dedicated to making downtown the city's core district for more than a decade, dating to when it was known as the Renaissance Group, and has a Rebuild Downtown effort under way. The Neighborhood Development Corp., a non-profit group working through the city to revitalize distressed neighborhoods in Cedar Rapids, is a partner in revitalizing downtown, as well.

The Cedar Rapids City Council worked with Linn County, the Downtown District, the Self-Supported Municipal Improvement District Commission for downtown and Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce and adopted pre-flood, in 2007, a Downtown Area plan. The flood altered the course of that effort but it still is alive.

Events such as the downtown Farmers Market are geared toward boosting the district. But most impressive may just be the businesses, themselves, who are back downtown and making a statement about that being a place they want to be. Click this link for a list of who's open.

Committed to be panelists are: Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, Cedar Rapids Downtown District CEO and President Doug Neumann, Iowa State University economics researcher Dave Swenson, Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce President Shannon Meyer, Cedar Rapids Small Business Recovery Group President Gary Ficken and Zins Restaurant co-owner Amy Wyss.

We'll give them 10 minutes each to make a point. Then, we'll open the floor for questions and comments.

Resource experts will be there to help answer any questions. Lists like these always are subject to change but going into the weekend it read: Greg Eyerly, the city's flood recovery director; Bob Harschnek, director of the Cedar Rapids Small Business Recovery Group; Teresa Bornbach, local Jumpstart business program administrator; and either Curt Nelson or another representative from the Entrepreneurial Development Center in Cedar Rapids. 

Jeff Tecklenburg, The Gazette's Opinion Page Editor, and Bruce Aune, KCRG-TV9 news anchor, will serve as moderators.

We're expecting a good crowd. We've arranged for up to 100 people to attend.

If you cannot attend you will be able to watch the forum in a live stream on

GazetteOnline.com, which also will host a live blog during the event.