Next Tuesday evening, August 4th at Nollen Plaza, your local Downtown Neighborhood Association and the Downtown Community Alliance are hosting the 26th Annual National Night Out event.

This is an excellent opportunity to get out and meet your neighbors, listen to live music and sample some cuisine and services from downtown businesses. Some of this year’s sponsors include: Sbrocco, Splash Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar, Fong’s Pizza, Atelier Hairspace, Dos Rios Cantina & Tequila Lounge, and sandwiches courtesy of the Pork Producers.

I plan on attending and would love to meet some of my regular readers, so come join us.

Continuing with our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week, this week’s picture comes from Brooke Peterson.

Brooke says “I took this photo on a beautiful summer evening at Principal Park. Not only was it a great night to watch our very own Iowa Cubs, but it was also a perfect sunset. This photo, with its pink and purple colors of the sky and the silhouette of the water tower on the roof of the Brown-Camp Lofts was taken from my seat at the stadium.”

Check out previous pictures in of our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week.

I’m not saying that we have a problem with bike theft downtown, but if we did, maybe the Des Moines Police Department could take a page out of the Boston Police Department’s playbook and use social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook for tracking downtown stolen bikes.

The Stolen Bikes Boston Community Alert initiative is a simple albeit wise way to let you report your stolen bike. The site then notifies the police, bike shops, and local security, plus posts to the the City’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Local residents can then follow the Twitter or Facebook accounts and report any sightings of the stolen bikes.

According to police department spokesman, “Leveraging Twitter and Facebook, on top of traditional channels, is a great to way to get the community involved and active in city crime-fighting efforts. The immediate nature of status updates, and their mobile distribution, means that more and more people can have instant access to the bike theft reports, increasing the likelihood that more lost bikes will be recovered.”

Boston Police have been using using Twitter for a while down to help get the word out on crime in the community. Here’s an example tweet from the Boston PD:

“INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody.“

A user named @willcady asked the following:

“@Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?”

…to which @Boston_Police replied:

“@willcady Yes, absolutely“

I would love to see Judy Bradshaw get the Des Moines Police Department on a similar path. What do you think? Would you follow the Des Moines Police Department on Twitter? Friend them on Facebook?

A recent article on The Big Money, by Jonathan Weber, discusses growth across the country moves away from suburban and exurban fringe and toward center-cities and close-in suburbs.

Here are few excerpts from the article that caught my attention:

What’s behind this shift? Empty-nesters don’t need the big house and don’t want to mow the big lawn. High gas prices are making long commutes less practical. The urban renaissance in big cities…and the revival of charming, vibrant downtowns in small cities…is making the bedroom suburb and the strip mall seem positively dull.

Retailers are the most obviously affected by these trends. For decades, locating a store in a mall on the fringe rather than downtown had a lot of obvious advantages: plenty of easy parking, tons of drive-by traffic from big-box neighbors, and newer buildings with better infrastructure.

These benefits won’t disappear overnight. Over the long run, though, they will diminish in importance, especially if more big retail chains and shopping-mall operators go out of business. Downtown shopping districts, meanwhile, will benefit from increased investment and more proximate residents. If we assume, as many economists do, that the country is “over-retailed,” some downtown development plans based on more shopping will stall, but the center will still prosper relative to the fringe — and more businesses might find the downtown storefront affordable.

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Sales have been a little slow the first six months of 2009, only 18 units selling this year compared to 33 during the same first six months of the year in 2009, but with the recession and financing difficulty in some complexes, this is still proving that people are wanting to move downtown.

The average selling price was $210,038 and median sales price was $194,400. In my opinion very affordable prices for a downtown condo. The biggest project bringing in the buyers for 2009 thus far is 4th & Court Condominiums, with 33% of all downtown buyers choosing 4th & Court Condominiums as their choice for living.

So I dug into my pockets and made a small investment into installing a downtown webcam, and by the way if you are wondering where it’s looking from, it’s my view from my downtown loft. For a city our size, it’s hard to believe we don’t have public webcams set up all over the city, but we don’t.

It would be nice to have webcams available with views of:

• Nolen Plaza
• Court Avenue District
• Gateway Park / Pappajohn Sculpture Garden
• Iowa Events Center

What other webcams I have been able to find are listed below.

• KCCI’s Downtown Towercam
• Downtown Webcam
• Principal Riverwalk Webcam

Continuing with our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week, this week’s picture comes from Flickr user Eric, also known as “Uncle Eric” and is of Science Center downtown.

Check out previous pictures in of our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week.

I know I’m not the first to express this, but it is inconceivable to me that Wells Fargo Arena does not even exist on the current skywalk signage or directories. The facility has been open for over 3 and a half years and if an out-of-towner looks at the signs to find the arena-well it just doesn’t exist.

I swear, if I wouldn’t get arrested for defacing public property (could I call it art?), I’m going to take a label maker down there and just start adding Wells Fargo Arena to all the directories and over-head signs!

Actually I’m trying to find out when and where the next meeting of the “Des Moines SkywalkCommittee” is to be held and hope to attend. I know the skywalks are a unique combination of public and private interests but the public sector hasn’t accomplished anything on this in way to long a time.

While I think we have a beautiful city and love living here, I can’t help but notice some of our urban decay just two or blocks from some of our biggest downtown draws, such as the new Pappajohn Sculpture Garden or our entertainment Court Avenue District.

Wikipedia defines urban decay as: “a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of disrepair. It is characterized by depopulation, economic restructuring, property abandonment, high unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and desolate and unfriendly urban landscapes.” I think downtown Des Moines’ urban decay is focus around property abandonment and unfriendly urban landscapes.

One of the main thoroughfares into downtown from the airport is crossing the George Carver Washington bridge on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. Take a look at two of the first buildings that you see when coming into downtown this way, the Crane Co. building and the once proposed Opus condo building. I’m not sure who owns it or what can be done about it, but check out the two photos below.

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Ok, I just read one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen today. I remember back in my youth when the movie Footloose came out that was about the dumb laws of Elmore City, Oklahoma that banned dancing. Well it came to my surprise, Des Moines has a similar law that goes into effect every night at 2am. I’m not talking about drinking past 2am, I’m talking about dancing past 2am.

According to the AP story, an obscure city ordinance outlaws public dancing after 2am and most residents and bar owners were not even aware of the law until members of the nonprofit Des Moines Social Club sought to hold an after-hours dance at their downtown building and were told no.

The law which dates to at least 1942, bans public dancing between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Monday through Saturday. For more check out the full article at: http://www.thestate.com/166/story/862156.html.

This is not the type of recognition Des Moines needs when it’s trying to attract more young people to live here.

I moved downtown about a month ago, into the 10^th Street Lofts. Although I work in Urbandale and living downtown means a commute for me, I moved downtown for two reasons:

1. I live with my girlfriend and she works downtown at Wells Fargo. She can now walk to work. Color me jealous. Oh well, at least one of us gets to walk.
2. We found a beautiful loft – concrete floors, one huge room, brick walls, large windows – the type of place I’ve always wanted to live.

I’ve always been fascinated with urban living, despite growing up tossed back and forth between the country and the ‘burbs. I love the idea of hitting the street early in the morning, walking down to a coffeeshop to grab a drink, then strolling through my daily errands. Because I work in Urbandale (despite my attempts to convince my boss we need an office downtown, hint, hint, Boss), I only get to experience this on Saturdays, but that’s enough. A coffee and a stroll through the farmer’s market is a wonderful start to my weekend.

As much as I love downtown living (and have barely experienced the tip of the iceberg), there are a number of things I’d like to see improved to make the core of the city more livable for people like me. Please keep in mind, most of these suggestions are intended for the downtown core.

Longer business hours. This is the number one item on my list, and by far the most important. By the time I get home from work, almost everything downtown is closed except for restaurants and bars. There’s a small bookshop I’d gladly support if it was open by the time I got home, got settled in, and was ready for an evening stroll. But I can’t, because the store isn’t open.

I don’t blame the owner, downtown shopping is plagued by a “chicken-egg” problem – businesses aren’t open past five because no one shops downtown after five.  And no one shops downtown after five because businesses aren’t open. Chicken, meet egg. Egg, chicken.

The only way to break out of this cycle is for businesses to stay open longer, even if it means that they will be slow after hours for a few months. People will come when they hear that businesses are open. It can’t happen the other way around.

Retail variety. Downtown needs more retail stores to make it a viable shopping destination. The biggest problem, aside from complicated parking and business hours, is the lack of stores. Many of the office buildings don’t offer street level retail space – their businesses go all the way down to the street. This is a problem. Entire buildings aren’t going to be rebuilt to solve it, but downtown businesses need to do a better job of opening up their street level floors to retail.

Downtown could also use more exclusive and high profile stores – an Apple store, high end clothiers, specialty mom and pops, and other stores are needed. Of course, these types of stores won’t move in until downtown establishes itself as a shopping location. Better hours, events, lowered rents, and tax breaks are needed to encourage this. If Des Moines is serious about moving retail downtown, the city needs to make retail more attractive through powerful incentives.

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Continuing with our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week, this week’s picture comes from Flickr user Christina Heeren, also known as cdheeren and is of downtown railroad bridge.

Christina says “I have spent hours photographing Des Moines and still haven’t uncovered all its treasures. There are so many photo opportunities to be discovered in both the historical and modern architecture. I love how our city has been able to blend and maintain both the past and present.”

Check out previous pictures in of our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week.

From the June 26th Press Release:
MAJORITY OF SCULPTURES INSTALLED AT JOHN AND MARY PAPPAJOHN SCULPTURE PARK: The Des Moines Art Center and city of Des Moines are pleased to announce that installation is nearly complete at the John & Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

Featuring 24 sculptures by 19 artists, the Pappajohn Sculpture Park will be a priceless addition to Des Moines’ Western Gateway Park. The installation of the sculptures highlights a process that began over two years ago with the generous donation of the sculptures by philanthropists John and Mary Pappajohn to the Des Moines Art Center.

Currently, all but one of the sculptures in the Pappajohn Sculpture Park have been installed. The final piece, Nomade (2007) by Jaume Plensa, will be installed in early July. Meanwhile, landscape architects will continue paving walkways, installing lighting elements, and laying sod. While much of the work will be complete in July, the John & Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park will not officially open until September. In the meantime, the Des Moines Art Center thanks everyone for their interest and patience during the construction process.

I found out about this event this week and signed up. As of this posting there are still 20 slots open. If you love exploring downtown and photography, this should be a “no brainer” for you.

MEETING LOCATION: Begin at New gardens on the West side of State Capitol, end at Doozies Bar and Grill in Embassy Suites
MEETING TIME: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM, July 18th.

A Message From The Walk Leader, Brandon Burnett: “I hope you’ll join me and a bunch of fellow photography enthusiasts for a evening photowalk in Des Moines. We will start at the new gardens on the west side of the Capitol at 6:30 and work our way around a variety of interesting areas in Des Moines’ East Village and some spots along the Des Moines river. I’ll try for a walk of about 1 mile and we should end up at Doozies Bar and Grill in Embassy Suites around 8:30. We’ll be walking with some of the most photogenic light of the day and with a wide variety of subjects. ”

Brandon Burnett is the owner of Burnett Digital. He has over fifteen years of photography experience and does commercial, portrait and stock photography. He has taught classes at the high school and community college level.

Register here: http://worldwidephotowalk.com/attendee-registration-form/?bid=610

Note: This post was originally published on August 22, 2008.

Since moving downtown, I find myself walking 300% more than I ever walked living in the burbs. I walk for my health, pleasure, shopping, eating out, grabbing a drink and running miscellaneous errands. With rising gas prices, walking all helps on the budget.

I noticed that cities are starting to be ranked and graded on their “walkability”. A site called Walk Score, gives downtown 50309 a score of 89 out of 100 possible points. Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking.
Here are general guidelines for interpreting a score:

• 90–100 = Walkers’ Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.
• 70–89 = Very Walkable: It’s possible to get by without owning a car.
• 50–69 = Somewhat Walkable: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car.
• 25–49 = Car-Dependent: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.
• 0–24 = Car-Dependent (Driving Only): Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!