Street Closing vs. New Medical Facility
A City Council member pulled me aside today and said, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” With dozens of flood recovery, community development and public policy issues on the front-burner right now, I wasn’t sure which was on the top of his list.
Turns out he was wondering whether the Downtown District supported closing Second Avenue SE at 10th Street to aid construction of a new doctors’ office building that Physicians Clinic of Iowa is planning to build. As I finished my answer to him (that masculine pronoun just narrowed down which council member approached me, although not by much), it occurred to me that my answer sounded like a good blog entry. I’m sure lots of downtown stakeholders, and others, are trying to figure out the pros and cons of such a project.
Closing streets that are integral to your downtown “grid” is not ideal, and doing so should never be done without considerable forethought. Urban planners and traffic engineers alike shudder at the idea of closing this street. I take their advice seriously, especially on the rare issues on which they actually agree.
But in economic development, there are always compromises and trade-offs to consider. And when I weigh the negative impacts of that street closure against what could be gained from having this PCI facility at the gateway to downtown and as a catalyst to other medical district development…. well, it’s not even that close of a call: Close the street. Build the new medical facility.
I do encourage policymakers to negotiate with PCI on the costs of the street closure, and the related conversions of Third, Fourth and Fifth avenues back to two-way traffic. The street closure is reportedly allowing PCI to build more economically, and the public sector costs should be considered part of the City’s economic development incentive to the project. It’s a significant contribution and compromise that should be made only if it’s needed to make the deal and prevent PCI from contributing to urban sprawl and unsustainable development on a surburban greenfield site.
As to the negative impacts, there’s one that concerns me and one at which I scoff.
I’m not overly concerned about the traffic impacts. I’ve driven in this town for 18 years, and I’ve yet to have to wait two light cycles to get through a controlled intersection or more than 30 seconds to make a left-hand turn across traffic. Tapping the brakes on the morning commute is about as serious a traffic congestion problem as we’re asked to endure. (I’ll save downtown train crossing delays for another blog entry on another day….)
I’m more concerned about how the street closure could impact development on either side of the new facility. Second Street downtown dead-ends into what was envisioned as a beautiful plaza and public gathering space between Fourth and Fifth avenues. Except, it never became that. Rather, it has served as a roadblock to downtown development. The intersections on either side of the plaza practically feel like they are in separate neighborhoods, and programming and development momentum has a way of stopping cold right there. The JLG Architects downtown vision plan strongly recommends trying to reopen that corridor, and that’s something downtown and community leaders continue to look at. Similar stories about the negative impact of street closures abound in peer communities all over the Midwest.
As long as we’re aware of that and make public policy and development decisions to try to overcome that, I think this can work out fine. And the traffic impacts can certainly be mitigated with the conversion of one-way street and leeway we enjoy from relatively congestion-free traffic patterns we have.
From what I know of the project, I support closing the street if that’s what it takes to complete a vastly beneficial economic development project. Let’s get it done.
So, there you have my opinion, Mr. Councilperson. But I could use some help mapping a new route to work.
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