Downtown District wants to create a Grant Wood Cultural District to attract state funds

The City Council lent its support this week to the creation of the Grant Wood Cultural District in and near the downtown.

Such a cultural-district designation, which must be approved by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, will help the district secure state funding to promote economic development in the cultural district.

Vanessa Solesbee, director of operations for the Downtown District, said Thursday that the Downtown District must have its application for the cultural district to the state of Iowa in early October. If the application is viewed favorably, a team of local representatives then will travel to Des Moines to make its case for the creation of the local district. A decision should come soon after that, she said.

The boundaries of the proposed Grant Wood Cultural District stretch from Third Street on the west side of the Cedar River to 10th Street on the east side and from Eighth Avenue to the south and A Avenue to the north.

Solesbee told the City Council this week that the Downtown District sought state designation for a cultural district in 2006 that encompassed not only the proposed Grant Wood Cultural District in and near the downtown but also New Bohemia and Czech Village. The state, she reported, said the area was too large. The state, though, did approve the creation of the New Bohemia/Czech Village Cultural District, which is now in place, she noted.