Council votes 6-3 to close a piece of Second Avenue SE

UPDATED: In the end, after some two-and-a-half hours of public and City Council comment, the vote wasn't close.

Six of nine members of the City Council last night strongly supported the closing of a two-block stretch of an important street, Second Avenue SE, to clear the way for Physicians' Clinic of Iowa to build a $37 million medical building the way the physicians say they need to build it.

Council member Pat Shey said closing two blocks of Second Avenue SE presented “minuscule risk” to the city and at the same time came with a “tremendous upside” for the city's economic development and its desire to establish a destination medical district.

Shey noted that city traffic engineers believe that closing of Second Avenue SE from 10th to 12th streets SE and diverting much of that traffic to a newly two-way Third Avenue SE will slow motorists into the downtown by 90 seconds a trip. Shey said that was the amount of time it takes to floss his teeth.

During the lengthy public comments, council member Justin Shields said he got to thinking of all the disruptions that took place in the city when Interstate 380 came through. Closing two blocks of Second Avenue SE was nothing, he said.

Chuck Swore, who along with Mayor Ron Corbett has been the most vocal supporters of the PCI project and its request to close a section of Second Avenue SE, emphasized that the property taxes that PCI will pay over 20 years based on its new investment will more than cover the city's upfront cost for a parking ramp and other items - costs estimated by the city last night at $11.4 million - for the project.

Council members Don Karr and Chuck Wieneke joined council member Monica Vernon in voting no on the project in large part because of what Karr called “fuzzy” City Hall numbers that seemed to justify the project.

Vernon unsuccessfully tried to get the council to defer its vote for three weeks to give a council committee a chance to sit down with PCI and see if some compromise could be reached on PCI's demand that a portion of Second Avenue SE be closed.

Vernon said she was as big a fan as anyone about the PCI project but for the issue over Second Avenue SE. Vernon said PCI shouldn't think it has the ability to design a city's street system. She said they call Second Avenue SE an artery for a reason.

Council member Kris Gulick noted that the council must vote two more times on the street closing. Gulick said he expected the development agreement between the city and PCI, which will spell out the financial details between the parties, to be ready before the council votes for a second time on the matter, likely on Sept. 14.

The council won't cast a third vote until next spring, apparently, in part, so PCI doesn't have to take responsibility for the street until then. All of Second Avenue SE apparently will remain open as is until then.

Leslie Hart, the city's associate traffic engineer, recommended that the city turn a portion of Third Avenue SE from a one-way out of the downtown to a two-way street by the time the section of Second Avenue SE closes.

Twenty-nine people spoke to the council about the PCI plans and its insistence that a piece of Second Avenue SE be closed for their project. Fifteen voiced opposition, 14 support, Mayor Ron Corbett said his tally showed.

The Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, the Cedar Rapids Downtown District, a downtown property-owner's board and a young professionals group all expressed support for closing Second Avenue SE for PCI's project.

PCI plans to open in 2013.

Among those commenting last night were PCI physicians, who reminded the City Council that they had all but made up their mind to build a one-story, mall-like facility on a large parcel of undeveloped land in Hiawatha when the city intervened more than a year ago and convinced PCI to stay in the city and to locate in a medical district between the city's two hospitals.

Dr. Tom Richardson said PCI's concept for the building is to make it easy for patients who must see more than one specialist to be able to do that easily in one building. The building design, with just two floors, will make it easier for physicians to collaborate on individual cases, he said. A building straddling Second Avenue SE and requiring skywalks would hurt the delivery of services, he added.

Several citizens said elderly and sick patients can get around a medical building more easily by going up an elevator to higher floors than walking long distances the same floor.

Opponents and supporters traded points about the problems or lack of problems that would come with closing Second Avenue SE, with some saying that impeding a major artery into the downtown would come to harm a downtown in need of revitalization.

Doug Neumann, president/CEO of the Cedar Rapids Downtown District, acknowledged that some downtown businesses and property owners had some concern about the ramifications of closing a part of Second Avenue SE. In the end, the leaders of the two downtown groups sided with the PCI plan, he said.

Several council members started there comments with personal stories.

Council member Shey said he had been at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in recent weeks while his father had a pacemaker placed in his chest.

Shey said he asked an elderly physician there if Rochester ever had closed streets for projects, and the physician said the city had. People adjust and, “like electricity and water, find the path of least resistance,” Shey said the doctor told him.

Shey remembered back a decade to another big City Council debate, that one over a decision to approve tax-increment financing similar to what the city will use with PCI to help Hy Vee Food Stores build a new grocery store in the highly visible 1400 block of First Avenue NE. “Corporate welfare” was the complaint them, Shey said.

He said the new Hy Vee store, which replaced an old, small store well beyond its prime, has become an “important” success, he said.

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