Marion begins major makeover this year

After years of debate and planning, the decades-long project to remake central Marion is about to take its first steps.

“It's probably time that we kind of cleaned up the downtown area a little,” said Lee Larson, owner of Irwins Clothing.

The renovation of four blocks of Sixth Avenue near City Square Park, to begin by mid-May, is the first phase of an ambitious plan to improve crosstown traffic flow while making the downtown business district, called Uptown in Marion, friendlier to pedestrians and bicyclists.

City Engineer Dan Whitlow said this summer's  $2.6 million Sixth Avenue project includes features that will carry through the entire Central Corridor project including wide sidewalks, reworked on-street parking, new streetlights and streetscape “furniture” such as benches, planters, and waste receptacles.

And plenty of trees.

“The intent is to make the downtown area very pedestrian friendly, high quality of life, which includes a lot of trees,” said Tim Mroch of Anderson Bogert Engineering, the city's design and engineering consultant.

Supporters say the amenities and a more efficient traffic flow will encourage new business and residential development in and near the corridor, boosting property values. The plan includes new bike trails linked to Marion's existing network and beyond, eventually including a route to Cedar Rapids.

Making the downtown business district  more attractive is a goal of the city and of residents who participated in the project's design workshops and public meetings. The resulting plan was adopted by the City Council in November 2009.

The idea is to build Uptown's future on its past, drawing residents and visitors to a mix of locally owned cafes, antiques shops, and specialty stores, all housed in century-old storefronts.

“It's a little like a shift from a quasi-old Marion to new Marion, but the old Marion ended about 1960, really,” said Craig Campbell, co-owner of the Campbell-Steele Gallery. “There's a strong relationship to old Marion, too, which is small, independently-owned stores - which it wasn't when I was a kid.”

This summer's work includes just under $200,000 worth of storm-sewer improvements. Whitlow said upgrades to the area's aged storm sewer will continue through the project.

Rathje Construction of Marion will focus on one block at a time on this summer's project. Whitlow said work on each block should last about a month.

The work also includes brick paving on the blocks around the park between Ninth and 12th streets on Sixth Avenue. Three staircase entrances to the park from Sixth Avenue will be rebuilt and widened to better accommodate crowds drawn by events such as the Marion Arts Festival. An old limestone retaining wall along the park's south edge will be rebuilt, and similar walls installed nearby.

Whitlow said design work has started for the corridor's next phase between 13th and 19th streets, including a roundabout planned for the 15th Street intersection. Work on that stretch isn't expected before 2014.

“The remainder of this year and next year will be acquisition of some right of way,” he said. “That will take about a year. Then in '14 we'll do the next phase.”

Whitlow said Sixth Avenue's complete $18.5 million makeover from Seventh Street east to 31st Street will take about 10 years.

The master plan calls for through traffic to shift to the reworked Sixth Avenue, which will be extended east of 22nd Street on a former railroad bed before swinging north to merge with Seventh Avenue.

A similar makeover that could take another decade will make Seventh Avenue a less-trafficked neighborhood street. A cost estimate on Seventh Avenue's part of the project won't be made until its design is finished.

This year's work is funded through Marion's share of the county's local-option sales tax revenue, a funding stream that ends in 2014.

County voters' rejection in March of a sales-tax extension “really doesn't affect that project,” said City Manager Lon Pluckhahn. Without LOST revenue, future work will be funded with bonding and “as (private) projects develop down through there some of that would be project-driven,” Pluckhahn said. “That might mean some tax-increment financing.”

Most Uptown business owners willing to talk favored the project, but not everyone is sold.

“I don't think it's going to (work),” said Rich Foens, owner of Smitty's Shoe Repair. “They're wanting to make this like the ped mall in Iowa City, and I don't think they're going to attract the business they think they are. They don't have the 40,000 college students  who have to walk around.”

Foens  said he worries about the handful of longtime traditional businesses, like the glass-and-wallpaper store next door whose owner didn't want to discuss the project.

Linda Farmer supports the corridor project, although her Town Square Paperback Books won't survive to see its completion.

“I think it's going to be good,” said Farmer, who plans to close the store and retire as soon as her landlord finds a new tenant. “So many people think they're going to be closing Seventh Avenue, and they're not.”

“The whole idea is just making Marion more customer-friendly, more pedestrian-friendly,” said Larson, whose father was a partner when the clothing store opened in 1960. “To make it a better experience for the shopper is what it's all about.”

Moving some traffic off Seventh Avenue is “a concern of all of us here on Seventh Avenue, but I think in the long run it's going to be better for all of us,” said Larson.

Mayor Allen “Snooks” Bouska is a critic of the plan for Seventh Avenue, where he and his family own a Dairy Queen. But he likes this summer's project and the Sixth Avenue part of the corridor project.

“I don't want to lose traffic” on Seventh, said Bouska. “The general idea of the plan, having a new Sixth Avenue, is acceptable.”

“The pass-through traffic, which is mainly what that is, will go to Sixth,” said Campbell. “That's a very positive thing. It's a fabulous project. The only downside is, it didn't start 20 years ago so it would be finishing up, instead of just starting.”