An idea afloat would close Second Avenue SE at the newly forming Medical District

CEDAR RAPIDS - Hustling inbound down Second Avenue SE from 19th Street SE into the downtown may be a thing of the past if an idea Mayor Ron Corbett intends to float at tonight's City Council work session gets some traction.

Corbett is going to suggest that the City Council look into closing Second Avenue SE at the newly forming Medical District, which is expected to have a footprint from St. Luke's Hospital to Mercy Medical Center and from 12th Street SE to some points on Sixth Street SE.

The concept would send motorists from Second Avenue SE over to First Avenue East and Third Avenue SE at the Medical District, and convert Third Avenue SE into a two-way street from the current, outbound, one-way street, Corbett said this week.

The City Council, the Downtown District and others have talked about the creation of a Medical District between the city's two hospitals for at least three years as the idea became part of the widely embraced downtown revitalization report by JLG Architects of Grand Forks, N.D.

The JLG report called for converting Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth avenues from one-way streets to two-way streets as a way to slow traffic down and turn the downtown into a spot to stop in rather than to speed past.

Last fall, the City Council, the hospitals and a medical group, Physicians' Clinic of Iowa, signed a formal agreement creating the Medical District.

Prompting the move is a plan by the clinic to build a new $40-million, 180,000-square-foot “medical mall” at 10th Street SE on both sides of Second Avenue SE. When unveiled in late October, the physicians clinic talked about the two buildings straddling Second Avenue SE with traffic flowing between them.

John Helbling, a retired Alliant executive who is now a consultant working with the hospitals and the clinic on the new medical district, said on Tuesday that he had not heard of the idea of closing Second Avenue SE at the Medical District. He thought it was idea worth discussion.

Helbling said the 100 or so people, including property owners currently in the district, who attended meetings last week said they favored improving traffic circulation in the Medical District. They liked the idea of two-way streets instead of the current one-ways, he said.