Downtown, MedQuarter districts team up to light Cedar Rapids’ center

CEDAR RAPIDS — When Mariah Carey sang “all the lights are shining so brightly everywhere” in her holiday hit, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Cedar Rapids likely wasn’t top of mind for the chart-topping musician.

But this year, it’s as if the downtown area sets the very scene Carey envisions with new holiday lights and decorative displays.

Thanks to the two Downtown and MedQuarter Self-Supporting Municipal Districts, new lights and decorations are lining First Avenue from 10th Street SE to First Street SE. This includes a giant ornament display near the Central Fire Station in the MedQuarter, a new bulb feature in front of the downtown DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, wreaths adorning the skywalks and a four-story-high projector mural with holiday music at the Armstrong Centre near Third Street SE and Third Avenue SE.

The MedQuarter’s signature street, 10th Street SE, is fully illuminated along with most of downtown and parts of Kingston Village.

Jesse Thoeming, downtown executive director for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, said Alliant Energy had installed new-efficient LED lights, so he and Phil Wasta, executive director of the MedQuarter Regional Medical District, teamed up early to link each area’s holiday decorations.

Thoeming said 2020 was “one of the worst years in recent memory” and the downtown district had a bevy of programs that were put on ice, creating some room in the operating budget to support lighting the heart of Cedar Rapids.

“We wanted to really brighten up downtown in a big way so that at the end of the years, folks could have that overall holiday cheer,” Thoeming said.

Major metropolitan areas often have lit-up downtowns for the holiday season, Wasta said — think Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The downtown and MedQuarter districts wanted Cedar Rapids’ urban core to look nice for the holiday as well.

“Both commissions have made a commitment to holiday lighting because they feel it's important for the district,” Wasta said. “The core of the city is an asset.”

Wasta said the MedQuarter had started lighting up for the holidays in 2017, but the power access from First Avenue to 10th Street SE allowed the two groups to extend the holiday experience along a broader swath of the urban core. Most of the cost associated with this project involved buying new lights, which Thoeming said started in 2019 and increased in 2020, then done in conjunction with the MedQuarter this year.

Some of the lights stayed up throughout the year, Thoeming said, as some residents shared that they liked the “cosmopolitan feel” of the bright white lights.

The LED lights use less power and last longer than the old incandescent lights, Wasta said, so one outlet can power more light strands. The lights previously were cut off and thrown away, but now Wasta said they will be unwrapped, checked for functionality and then put into storage to be used the next year.

The districts expect to keep the lights up through January and then take them down for overall tree health and maintenance such as trimming, Thoeming said.

In addition to the downtown lights and decorative displays, the Alliant Energy Tower also lights up in the evenings, and Thoeming said the utility’s programming is typically coordinated with the Third Avenue bridge lights. Alliant will use red, green and black colors for Kwanzaa, which will be celebrated Dec. 26 through Jan. 1.

Thoeming said the Armstrong Centre also will continue to be used as the signature holiday space downtown, incorporating different cultures and holidays into the collective year-end celebration.

“The imagery and the setup of how these lights look, it's a year-end celebration for everybody,” Thoeming said.

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