Iowa City Downtown District executive director makes effort to revitalize area

For Nancy Bird and her family, very few jobs could have drawn them back to the Midwest from their lives in Seattle.

But when the Iowa City Downtown District executive director position became available in 2012, the new job and life in Iowa City for Bird and her family seemed to be the perfect mix of simplicity, quality and economic and career opportunities.

Bird, who grew up in Washington, Iowa, said Iowa City always has held a special place in her heart after visiting downtown for shopping and entertainment. However, since she began as the executive director, Bird has challenged herself to look at downtown Iowa City from a fresh perspective.

Mark Ginsberg, the owner of M.C. Ginsberg, which has been downtown since 1987, is president-elect of the district's board of directors. He said he has seen the downtown business become more organized and act as a 'unified force' in recent years with Bird and the downtown district.

'It's a constantly evolving and positively changing environment. We've come a long way in the last five years or so,' Ginsberg said.

Since taking over the job, Bird has worked on a number of projects with the Downtown District to improve the cleanliness and safety of downtown Iowa City. The district now has a police officer, David Schwindt, who works during the days in the area, and the district has installed lighting to improve safety.

In addition, Bird and Betsy Potter, the district's operations director, have put an emphasis on programming to help improve safety in the area as well.

'We've also added a lot of events and programming so that there are things going on,' Bird said 'When there is a lot of positive activity, you kind of push out the negative stuff.'

The Downtown District's latest programming project is called Open Washington, an effort to help bring people downtown despite the construction on Washington Street and the rest of the Streetscapes project to improve the surrounding streets. The activities included paddleboarding, outdoor pingpong and board game night in the Ped Mall.

'It's really part of our culture,' Bird said. 'So the types of creatives that live and work here, they see value in constantly innovating in some way and, so if we keep a creative team around us, then what we do in the street should be equally as innovative and can be inspiring and fun.'

Ginsberg said he expects the foot traffic and created by the new programming has 'all have proved to create more of a billboard' for his and other businesses downtown and expects it to 'have a long lasting effect.'

Because of this, Bird said she will attempt to make Open Washington programming regular in the future.

Now, Bird is focusing on the group's finances, communications with the board of directors as well as the public, and grant writing and project management. Ginsberg said Bird has been particularly successful in getting business owners to work together and is 'extremely effective' at dealing with the many different personalities in Iowa City, unlike he's seen in the past.

'We really need to stay on what we currently are doing well, which is making sure that we're working closely with the City of Iowa City and the University of Iowa and supporting downtown investments that matter,' Bird said.