Pomeranz promises to convince employers to invest in downtown C.R.

Jeff Pomeranz, the city's new city manager, told the annual meeting of two downtown organizations last night that he and his wife, Nancy, had all but picked out the big lot with the pretty trees on which they were going to build a new Cedar Rapids home.

Then, he said, they took a tour of the Bottleworks loft condominiums, a former warehouse just off the downtown, and changed all their plans. The view out the windows of the downtown at night, he said, made all the difference.

“It was just inspiring for me to see downtown, one that all of us know is in need of help, all of us know is about to enter a rebirth,” the 52-year-old Pomeranz told members of the Downtown District and the Self-Supporting Municipal Improvement District on what he said was Day 52, counting weekends, of his time on the job in Cedar Rapids.

Pomeranz said Cedar Rapids is much more than downtown, but in addressing the downtown crowd he emphasized that the city's downtown was a “critical, vital part” of Cedar Rapids.

He told the gathering at Theatre Cedar Rapids that he walks now some at night in the downtown and he isn't happy that so many first-floor storefronts sit empty, 29 months after the 2008 flood.

“We need to do something about that,” he said.

He promised to work to convince businesses and employers that downtown Cedar Rapids is good place to invest in and be in; to get the word out that the city has an interim flood-protection system at the ready in which the city can erect nearly three miles of protective barriers at a time of a flood threat; and to work to secure backing and funding for a permanent flood-protection system for the city.

Pomeranz reported that he, the mayor and other city officials and local leaders would be in Washington, D.C., next week to participate in a presentation of the city's flood-protection plan to the Army Corps of Engineers' Civil Works Review Board. The city remains committed to flood protection for both sides of the river, he said, but he added that next week the city will place its energy behind the Corps' limited recommendation to protect only the east side of the river.

“Other protection matters will come in the future,” he told the downtown groups. “But we're going to be focused next week … on defending, on agreeing with and on supporting the proposals of the Army Corps of Engineers.”

Pomeranz made note of the City Hall sales-tax proposal in which the city will ask state lawmakers to divert the growth in sales-tax revenue collected in Linn County to the city so it can pay its share of a flood protection system.

The city manager said well-laid plans for post-flood reconstruction are set to be implemented, and he said in the months ahead construction will start on a new library, new riverfront amphitheater, a new Convention Complex event center and a renovated City Hall and the former federal courthouse.

“It's not an exaggeration to say the new bird of Cedar Rapids will be the crane,” he said of construction soon to come. “You're going to see a lot of cranes.”

Pomeranz noted that the City Council just this week endorsed design plans for the new Convention Complex, the cost of which now has jumped from $67 million to $75.6 million. The city wants to buy and renovate the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel at the site, and Pomeranz suggested that the hotel purchase, which he called a “critical part” of the complex project, would be coming soon. Overall, with the purchase and renovation of the hotel, the project cost will exceed $100 million, he said.

“That kind of action takes some real commitment, some boldness, some forward-thinking to allow the community's downtown to move forward,” Pomeranz said. “ … I believe it will be worth it.”

The city manager said he didn't have all the answers, just energy and a desire to get things done.

“I think great things will happen in Cedar Rapids,” he said. “ … It's a great time. I believe Cedar Rapids is and will be the boom town of Iowa.”