With nod to Cedar Rapids, Iowa City reaches beyond bar scene

IOWA CITY - On a warm Friday evening in May, some 200 people filled downtown's clothing boutiques and art and jewelry stores, sipping cocktails, munching on snacks and meandering from store to store, browsing, socializing and shopping.

They were there for the Iowa City Downtown District's Summer Shop Crawl, a commerce-minded twist on the bar crawl concept.

The event was a boon for makeup and cosmetics shop Root, which opened on the Pedestrian Mall earlier this year and normally wouldn't be filled with customers at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

'It's just good exposure. We've had lots of people who haven't heard of us before show up,” said manager Julie Mueller. 'There's been a lot of foot traffic. Things like this definitely draw people downtown.”

That is exactly the goal the Downtown District was aiming for with the event, and with a slate of others planned for the summer, including the inaugural Downtown Block Party scheduled to take over more than seven blocks from 5 to 11 p.m. Saturday.

'When we came up with this event, the main purpose was to support nighttime businesses and nighttime culture,” Downtown District Director of Operations Betsy Potter said.

That's why the block party won't feature outside vendors. Instead, businesses will bring what they do outside, with people able to purchase drinks from bars and restaurants that can be brought into the streets in specially marked cups.

The district's goal is to draw 15,000 people to the event. If that sounds lofty, it's based on real numbers, district Executive Director Nancy Bird said. For example, the organization's Taste of Iowa City event, which features sample-sized food from local eateries, drew 8,000 people this year. And regionally, there is an appetite for similar events.

When the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance launched its Night Market in 2015, also featuring nighttime activities, food and outdoor alcohol, an estimated 34,000 poured into downtown Cedar Rapids, more than twice the average attendance of its Saturday morning farmers markets. Many downtown bars and restaurants said it was one of their busiest nights of the year, and some ran out of food and drink.

People from both the Downtown District and the city of Iowa City talked with the Economic Alliance about the Night Market, including the legal and logistical considerations of putting on such an event and what they learned and changed between the first and second years. Those conversations helped shape plans for the Block Party.

However, those representatives worked hard to make their event uniquely Iowa City, Potter said.

That means everything from live music by local favorites Caroline Smith, Elizabeth Moen and others on three stages to art installations to a fashion show with local designers, along with a host of other activities aimed at kids, teens and adults alike.

'We always try to keep thing authentic to downtown Iowa City,” Bird said. 'Everything we do has a purpose. It's not just, hey, let's throw another event.”

In this case, the purpose is partly supporting downtown retailers and restaurants but also encouraging the vision of downtown Iowa City at night as more than just a college bar scene.

Bird says she doesn't see an event with open container alcohol as contrary to that purpose. Rather, she wants people to who come to the block party to see a family-friendly evening where people can drink responsibly - a fun night that doesn't center on binge drinking inside a bar.

'We want to change the opinion of downtown,” she said. 'The more programming, the more faces, the more people we bring out, it really kind of keeps those things in check.”

The Block Party also serves as the unofficial launch of a slate of summer programming focused on the Ped Mall, specifically Black Hawk Mini Park, the section of the mall adjacent to Washington Street that's now under the shadow of the 14-story Park@201 mixed-use building.

That area was identified as space that could use greater definition, according to a community survey. So district staff are planning everything from weekly outdoor yoga sessions in the space to art installations to community lunches on Fridays. They're even planning pop-up weddings for July 29.

'We have a focus on place-making,” Bird said. 'For us, place-making is shaping the space, what it's used for, how people engage with it. If it's not a place, it's a walk-through, it doesn't have a purpose, which is a waste.”

Potter expanded on that concept, trying to explain how policy and programming can work with the 'je ne sais quoi” that gives a neighborhood its identity.

'Place-making is important because it's part of the reason people want to be downtown,” she said. 'Place-making activities - like the pianos, like Benchmarks - bring art to non-traditional canvases, and that's part of Iowa City.”

The pianos she's referring to are scattered on sidewalks throughout the district, ready for passing children and concert pianists alike to plunk out a tune on. Benchmarks is a program that commissions a rotating slate of local artists to paint murals on the benches lining the Ped Mall.

They're things Potter said can help create a picture of Iowa City in the minds of not just locals but visitors. And that's good for the businesses in the district.

'We need to differentiate Iowa City from other places in our market as an economic center,” she said.

For Shop Crawl participant Kelli Wolfe, the district's efforts are doing just that.

'I'm happy they're putting on more events,” she said. 'When I was younger, I wasn't aware of events like this. I think they're really trying to jump up the efforts.”

She was browsing Root's makeup counters alongside her daughter Evelyn Wolfe, 14, and one of her daughter's friends.

'They like coming downtown even more than I do,” she said.

l Comments: (319) 398-8434; alison.gowans@thegazette.com