Neumann: Downtown Cedar Rapids inching back

Buy low, sell high. It's one of the most basic pieces of investment advice. But it can be difficult advice to follow when you're talking about real estate or the stock market. We rarely know the low point or the high point of home prices or the S&P 500 until long after they have passed.

The same principle might be easier to abide by in some other business applications. I'm sure it's not the perfect analogy, but I've been giving a lot of thought lately to whether business leaders consider the buy low, sell high concept when deciding a location for their workplace.

There's a frenzied pace of businesses talking about downtown Cedar Rapids right now. Numerous businesses are exploring options for relocating to downtown. And, unfortunately, a few businesses are considering options that could move them out of downtown.

I can't help but think those coming in are buying low, while those looking to move out might be “selling” at the worst possible time, near the beginning of a bull market run for downtown Cedar Rapids.

The post-flood reinvestment in downtown and the city's core neighborhoods has been well documented. The Signs of Progress website (www.signsofprogresscr.com) details almost three-quarters of a billion dollars of construction that is under way or will be soon - much of which is being invested in the downtown area or on the fringes of downtown.

The Signs of Progress list only begins to touch on the improvements going on. Alliant Energy and ITC Midwest are working on projects to improve the reliability and redundancy of the downtown power grid. The city and Downtown District are working together to install multi-space parking meters and other new parking technology that will significantly improve downtown parking. The same partners are working on building two new parking ramps and adding other parking capacity to downtown. Developers are considering private sector projects, including a new hotel, more downtown housing and new office development. These, and other elements of our exciting vision plan, are progressing at a dizzying pace. Downtown Cedar Rapids is evolving before our eyes.

Getting from today to that prosperous and vibrant future involves some chaos and inconvenience. Major areas of downtown will be a construction site for the next 12 to 24 months, restricting parking areas and traffic lanes and adding noise and congestion to an already-busy neighborhood. If those were prevailing conditions, I might be looking to get out, too. But this is a very temporary situation, and the short-term pain is the low side of the market. Tomorrow will be here before we know it, and many businesses will find their downtown workplace situation not only is better than today but better than it has been for decades. Visionary businesses such as Rockwell see past the chaos and have invested in new downtown locations - an investment that will pay off in the very short-term as well as much farther in the future.

To be clear, I've heard from far more optimists than pessimists, and the “buy low” workplace investors have indeed been buying. As of Feb. 1, we had at least 673 businesses open in the greater downtown area. That's still down more than 10 percent from where we were pre-flood, but employment numbers have inched back almost to 2008 levels. When the Rockwell move is complete and City Hall returns, we finally will have restored the full level of jobs that were here in June 2008.

Our growth won't stop there. Our indicators are all positive. Buyers are welcome. Sellers, make sure you're weighing the short-term pain versus the long-term gain before you decide to sell low.

By Doug Neumann, president/CEO, Cedar Rapids Downtown District.