116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
As downtowns transform post-pandemic, Marion and Coralville find the key is mix of uses, events
‘Understanding that togetherness’ helps bring the heart of a city to life
MARION — When Ryan Waller applied to become Marion’s city manager in 2021, he and his wife ventured to Uptown Marion for “secret shopping” to get a feel for the community. They watched a football game at Uptown Snug, grabbed lunch at Goldfinch and toured some of the shops.
He wanted to know: What were the workers at these businesses saying? What were the business community's impressions of the city?
“Everybody I talked to, they were like walking billboards of all the positive things that were happening, and they could articulate in such great detail the vision that was being implemented,” Waller said, now nearly two years into his role as city manager.
Waller said workers and business owners were enthusiastic ambassadors for the Uptown Artway project, completed in 2017, and the $6.9 million Uptown streetscape project that was getting underway. The artway -- an underused alley between 10th and 11th streets and Seventh and Eighth avenues -- was revitalized and now features nine art installations by local and national artists as well as music and events.
Waller said the endeavor showed forethought in creating a sense of place with events and art on the backside of businesses before construction on the street in front of stores. Plus, he said, the way the city and local organizations collaborated with businesses on the Uptown changes impressed him.
It’s that spirit of collaboration, he said, that make city centers like Marion’s thrive.
Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic -- which shuttered businesses and sent many workers home to work remotely -- Corridor communities are looking into ways of creating downtowns that are resilient to future economic headwinds.
Variety in a downtown is key, local officials say, to attracting residents and visitors to a city’s core, where they can spend time and money in stores and restaurants and on entertainment.
Marion, population almost 42,000, and Coralville, population 23,000, are among the cities that have seen success in creating vibrant downtowns, using public investment to leverage private investment and to grow businesses.
Attend Gazette’s Business Breakfast
The Gazette is hosting its last Business Breakfast event of the year: Reimagining Downtowns. What are regional hubs are doing to keep their downtown areas — the hearts of our communities — vibrant after the pandemic altered the spaces?
Panelists will be Nikki Wilcox, Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance; Kelly Hayworth, Coralville city administrator; Betsy Potter, Iowa City Downtown District; Brooke Prouty, Uptown Marion; and Tiffany O’Donnell, mayor of Cedar Rapids.
When: Tuesday. Doors open at 7:30 a.m., panel 8 to 9 a.m.
Where: Geonetric Building, 415 12th Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids
Mix of uses is key
In the last year especially, Marion and Coralville officials have seen their city centers hum with activity again, largely pushing past pandemic impacts by offering a mixed-use central business district.
Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said the 180-acre mixed-use Iowa River Landing has seen new businesses open recently, including Mexican restaurant Blue Agave, fitness center The Gym and indoor golf simulator X-Golf.
The development, just off Interstate 80, was once an industrial area with warehouses and abandoned buildings. Over many years, it has been repurposed into a hub for shopping, restaurants, housing and the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center, along with the Xtream Arena as an anchor for high-profile events.
Two new businesses also recently opened office spaces in the Iowa River Landing, Hayworth said, looking to entice new employees and keep current employees by having a dynamic place for them to work. The employers were looking to be around restaurants to dine in and places to shop after work or on breaks, he said.
“It was really that overall atmosphere was what they were looking for,” Hayworth said.
In Marion, the city is pursuing a $7.3 million project to transform Central Plaza at City Square Park in the heart of Uptown Marion.
It will include water features, art, seating areas, fire tables (ones with propane or gas burners) and a refrigerated ice-skating loop during the winter. The Depot Pavilion in the park — which was built with the roof structure and bricks from the original Marion train depot — will be enclosed, with an event space, bathrooms and warming area for the ice loop.
Once completed, city officials have said, it will build upon other investments made in the heart of the city, including the streetscape.
In the streetscape project, the city reconstructed streets and sidewalks and replaced underground utilities, sanitary sewers, storm sewers and water mains on Seventh Avenue and side streets between Eighth and 12th streets and Sixth and Eighth avenues. It also added a new plaza on 11th Street stretching from the city’s Uptown Artway south across Seventh Avenue.
String lights were installed at the plaza. Seventh Avenue’s redesign as a “festival street” allows it to be closed for events.
Brooke Prouty, director of Uptown Marion, said businesses are thrilled with how the area has turned out and they see more traffic in the area as a result of those public improvements.
The Artway project wrapped up in 2017 — the first phase in Uptown improvements that ran from 2013 to 2021, Prouty said. The Uptown area, she said, saw $20 million in economic growth over nine years. In 2022 alone, Uptown saw $40 million in economic growth, she said.
“There’s this momentum that's been building over the last 10 years, and people are seeing the value in investing in this area, and it's reached a whole new trajectory,” Prouty said.
Events activate public spaces
After being cooped up during the pandemic, people have increasingly shown they’re ready to get out again, Hayworth said. With that in mind, events and activities have become important to continuously providing enough traffic to fuel cities’ downtown activity.
“They want to be at things, they want to participate in things. ... There was just things that physical stores and restaurants could provide that the internet couldn't,” Hayworth said. “I think that whole socialization, to be able to see people and things all of a sudden after the pandemic, became an important part of people's lives and what they were looking for.”
Events at the Xtream Arena and the GreenState Family Fieldhouse, a five-court facility attached to the Coraville arena, constantly bring new people or residents into the city seeking entertainment, Hayworth said. The complex hosts concerts and sporting events throughout the year.
“That then spills over to the rest of the retail space,” Hayworth said. “We monitor that constantly — which events create better numbers of people. But not only the numbers of people, but different types of events create different demands for different types of businesses. Some are better at (attracting) shopping in retail stores than others are.”
Finding new twists on long-held events to activate these spaces also has helped the city.
Hayworth said Coralville’s annual WinterFest event — typically an indoor event — included more outdoor events this year. It was held along the Iowa River Power Pedestrian Bridge, Riverfront Park and locations in the Iowa River Landing.
Similarly, Marion is looking to take advantage of seasonal opportunities to activate its Uptown, to create a sense of place that draws people year-round.
Waller said Marion’s Chamber of Commerce plans events such as Christmas in the Park and Peppermint Walk that attract people to Uptown. And local organizations are still “scratching the surface” of how to use the Uptown spaces, with the city’s first Oktoberfest launched last year.
“The ice loop is going to create a new opportunity to activate the Uptown during those months where you typically don't see a lot of traffic,” Waller said. “You'll be able to activate it and generate more foot traffic in a different way that's never been done before.”
‘You have to be open’
As cities nationwide seek answers in their quests for downtown redevelopment, city officials see adding housing, activating green space and other public areas and providing a mix of retail as the keys to vibrant central business districts.
Hayworth said Coralville is working on additional housing development — a mix of rental units and owner-occupied homes — that will help generate activity in the city center.
Complementing that housing is the city’s plans for more recreation by the Iowa River with a master plan for a riverfront park north of the Iowa River Power’s parking lot — an outdoor amphitheater, more trails and other amenities.
“You have to be open to a lot of different uses and mixes, and having that mix is important,” Hayworth said. “The residential is a key to successful operations of a downtown area, and you have to be open to a wide variety (of uses). You can't get too heavy or centric on restaurants, for example, or a certain type of retail.”
Prouty agreed a mix of retail is needed to keep city cores buzzing, saying Uptown Marion’s success has come from growing and supporting local entrepreneurs to do projects and open businesses.
“They have roots here,” Prouty said. “They have a passion for being here, and they are going to be more invested in being a part of your community. You can attract franchises, people from outside your community, but they're not going to have the loyal-to-local and those relationships within the community to be as successful as your local entrepreneurs.”
Waller said Marion’s public investments assures businesses that private sector investments will be protected.
Ultimately, though, it’s the partnership of the city, Marion Economic Development Corp. and the Chamber of Commerce working with businesses and the community to create and execute a vision that makes the Uptown district come to life, he said.
“For other communities, it's really got to be about understanding that togetherness,” Waller said. “… When you set those egos aside, you're positioning yourself so much better, and you're creating a form that just allows for better communication, better idea generation and less obstacles to get in the way of implementing successfully.”
Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com
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