Cedar Rapids residents share thoughts on proposed flood memorial

CEDAR RAPIDS - Floodwater rose 5 feet on the main floor of SanDee Skelton's home in 2008, then she lived for a year in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer while rebuilding in her northwest Cedar Rapids neighborhood.

Many other homes and business in the area were demolished. Lives shattered. Roads washed off the map. Years later, memories remain fresh in an area that bears little resemblance to how it looked before 2008.

During a public meeting held Tuesday at the Northwest Recreation Center, 1340 11th St. NW, those who've stuck around the neighborhood said they are pleased to see ideas for what is being called the 'Gateway to the River Memorial Plaza,” which aims to serve as a transition point between greenway parks along the Cedar River and the neighborhood, as well as a stop on the local trail system.

The plaza would sit on a bout a quarter-acre of land along O Avenue NW just east of Ellis Boulevard NW. Plans call for the plaza to include a 26-foot-tall West Side Rising sculpture - a tribute to the neighborhood's recovery and resilience following the 2008 flood during which the Cedar River crested at 31.2 feet.

'I would go with the monument there and have a place to sit and think about things,” said Skelton, 79. 'It would be a nice place for people to find closure.”

Concepts for the plaza are still being vetted but it could have a brick or concrete surface with seating and landscaping.

'It brings focus to the neighborhood,” said Sue Wesely, 53, who lives on Ellis Boulevard NW and also rebuilt after the 2008 flood. 'Beauty from ashes is what comes to mind. It brings life back into a desolate neighborhood.”

Al Pierson, of Pierson's Flower Shop, 1800 Ellis Blvd. NW, said he sees the plaza as a place for neighborhood events and echoed Skelton's take.

'I think it will be a favorite place for the neighborhood to gather, to reflect,” he said.

Pierson is involved in raising money for the sculpture and said more than $200,000 - about two-thirds of the goal already is in hand. The goal is to begin construction by June 13 - the ninth anniversary of the flood.

Creating a plaza has been a priority since the earliest post-flood community meetings and is especially meaningful given the re-emergence of the neighborhood, said Jennifer Pratt, the city's community development director.

'It's not only celebrating the transformation of this area, but all the reinvestment and the repopulation,” she said.

City officials on Tuesday solicited feedback based on three design concepts put forth by architecture and engineering consulting firm Shive Hattery. Residents were asked to place green stickers on the concepts they liked best.

The clear favorite was a circular plaza to the north of O Avenue with West Side Rising at the center and landscaping that slopes into the eventual flood berm.

'We are trying to create a home for it, a setting for people to go up and connect to it,” Keith Billick, a senior landscape architect for urban design at Shive Hattery, said of West Side Rising.

Some want names listed in bricks for the people whose homes were lost in 2008. Billick described it as two memorials: West Side Rising recognizing the significance of the flood event, and a second memorial much more specific to who and what was there before.

'I want to show this is a place where people and families lived,” said Ann Poe, a Cedar Rapids City Council member. 'That to me would be a memorial.”

She wants to see a replica of the old neighborhood as a mini grid with the old streets and names etched in bricks where homes would be, which is similar to a memorial constructed in Grand Forks, N.D., following a devastating flood.

O Avenue will eventually be the only road passing between the eventual berm connecting the neighborhood to First Street NW.

An archway is another component of the project and will symbolize the transition into this specific part of the community. Planners are still deciding whether the archway will be connected with the plaza or to the eventual berm, but renderings show it as a stand-alone with large columns.

The berm could still be 15 years off, but Pratt said work on the plaza should get underway fairly quickly in hopes of having it at least partially complete by the 10th anniversary of the 2008 flood in June 2018.

A preferred design for the memorial is to be reviewed at the next regular meeting of the Northwest Neighborhood Association set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at the Northwest Recreation Center. After that, a plan will go to City Council for approval. Pratt said officials have not yet identified a budget.

l Comments: (319) 339-3177; brian.morelli@thegazette.com