Debate over proposed Cedar Rapids medical district continues

No revolution started Wednesday evening as a couple hundred people came out to hear about plans for the city's new Medical District, plans unveiled 10 months ago that include a hotly debated proposal to close Second Avenue SE between 10th and 12th streets SE to make way for a new, $36-million medical building.

The tried-and-true format of Wednesday night's public open house was designed so the public looks at poster boards of information, listens to a short presentation and then talks, one to one, to officials and experts.

Even so, at the end of the Wednesday night's presentation, one man stood and objected to the closing of Second Avenue SE, calling the Physicians' Clinic of Iowa “selfish” for wanting to close the street for its proposed new building and for not taking into account the wishes of the driving public. Some quiet applause followed before the man vanished.

Jason Hellendrung, a principal with consultant Sasaki Associates Inc. of Watertown, Mass., conducted Wednesday night's presentation on behalf of representatives of the Medical District, and he said that the creation of the Medical District along 10th Street SE - stretching from St. Luke's Hospital to Mercy Medical Center with PCI's new development in between - would create good jobs, fuel economic development, improve the city's tax base and enhance the quality of life in the community.

Hellendrung asked who had come to the open house especially because of the proposed closing of part of Second Avenue SE, and he said he was surprised it was not more of those who were there.

He encouraged people to talk to traffic engineers at Anderson-Bogert Engineering and Surveying Inc. of Cedar Rapids, who now have completed a traffic study that Hellendrung said concludes that city's street system will continue to function “quite well” if a portion of Second Avenue SE is closed.

After the presentation, the study's author, engineer Jeff Morrow, said as much.

Morrow said the city's paired one-way streets, Second and Third avenues SE, carry less than 40 percent of the traffic that they carried 40 years ago when the downtown was a retail center. Seemingly busy First Avenue East is operating today at 70 percent of the capacities of years ago before Interstate 380 was built, Morrow said.

The initial closing of a portion of Second Avenue SE, he noted, envisions that most of the traffic would be diverted to First Avenue East. When that happens, the city would need to convert Second Avenue SE to a two-way from 12th to 13th streets SE and from Seventh to 10th streets SE and would need to add a center turn lane on 10th Street SE between First and Third avenues SE. The cost, an estimated $2.4 million.

The longer term solution, Morrow said, would divert downtown-bound Second Avenue SE traffic on 13th Street SE to a two-way Third Avenue SE. Ultimately, Third Avenue SE would need to be widened to five lanes, with this approach costing an estimated $4.5 million. Morrow said Third Avenue SE would become a new “workhorse” not unlike First Avenue East as traffic moved to it from Second Avenue SE.

Scott Wallace, who runs two Laundromats in the Cedar Rapids area and drives through the downtown all the time, Wednesday night said it was “ridiculous” to close Second Avenue SE just because some city leaders are taken by a development proposal from doctors.

“I think they got stars in their eyes,” Wallace said. “They really aren't thinking it through. I don't quite see why they have to close off the street. I'm not sure how it improves patient care.”

Gary and Doris Kenney own a commercial building at Second Avenue and Eighth Street SE and came out Wednesday night to hear what the Medical District might have in store for their property. They said they hope someone buys their property, and they say the Medical District idea would help “clean up” that part of the city.

However, Gary Kenney said he thought business traffic on Second Avenue SE, if a portion of the street is closed off, would come to a halt, hurting the value of his property. Even so, Doris Kenney said she favored growth. “Cedar Rapids has to keep moving forward. We have to keep people interested in the city.”

Bob and Beth Allsop put great stock in the conclusions of the traffic engineers, and they said closing a piece of Second Avenue SE was a small price to pay in the effort to bring more of the medical community together in one spot. Bob Allsop compared the concept to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

A second open house will be held today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in The Ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel. A presentation will be made at 11:30 a.m.

Former Mayor Kay Halloran attended Wednesday night's session and said the Medical District concept remained as good as when she and her City Council colleagues first endorsed it in a resolution last October. Halloran said the cost to taxpayers in proposed economic incentives and street improvements still need to be sorted out.

The City Council is expected to discuss the PCI request to close a section of Second Avenue SE at its Aug. 24 meeting.

Med District Open House