'Hawkeye Corridor' getting mixed response

Last week I blogged about a renewed push for regionalism in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area Corridor.

A few folks have responded to the question I posed then: what do you think of "Hawkeye Corridor" as a brand name for this spot along Interstate 380 in Eastern Iowa? Here are a few:

From Twitter:

•  OwenWB wrote: "Hi Lyle - how about 'Gateway to West Branch' if 'Hawkeye Corridor' doesn't sell?"

  Some background: OwenWB is from West Branch. I suspect you guessed that.

•  From NLTV: "We vote for 'The Crandic.' Sounds classic, specific and descriptive."

One person commented on my previous blog post about this. The suggestion: "Corridor 2020"

This voice message was left on my phone Sunday morning, Nov. 8, after I wrote about the regionalism idea in my Gazette column: "There's a lot of mixed people that are not Hawkeye fans in this area, even though we were born and raised in Eastern Iowa. To call that whole area Hawkeyes would be a terrible misjustice." 

Nothing is anywhere near being set, or even being talked about formally. The "Hawkeye Corridor" was an idea floated around in informal talks among area business, government and education leaders had the night of Nov. 2 with Michael Langley, president and founder of the Langley Group, out of Pittsburgh but with offices elsewhere, too. It makes for interesting discussion, so I thought I'd update you.

To learn more about this effort to jump-start regional development, here is a link to the

Corridor Business Alliance. The alliance is group of local leaders trying to build a regional approach to attracting and retaining business to the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area.