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.

A grocery store. Gateway Market is at 20^th and Woodland, which is too far away for downtown pedestrians (though not too far for bikes). There are a few small stores in the skywalk, and one in the Plaza, but the limited selection (because of small spaces) and limited hours (any good grocery store should be open until at least 10 PM) make these places less attractive. For people living downtown – there needs to be a quality street level option smack in the center, a store that stocks fresh produce and meats, and is open long enough to be useful. I understand that a 3 AM ice cream and pickles run might not be feasible downtown, but a 9 PM run should be. Once I get home from work I’d like to do everything on foot.

Continual support of the art and music scene. There are some great places downtown for live music, as well as a few art galleries, but more is always better in this regard. Des Moines has done a fine job supporting local artists. The art festival is great. I would like to see more live music outside in the summer, though. Overall, I like the direction Des Moines is taking for art and music, and I’d like to see even more of it.

Better technology support . As an avid technology user, I’d like to see downtown Des Moines embrace technology in a big way. I’d like to see Des Moines be put on the map as a tech center.

 I want to see an iPhone or mobile phone application dedicated to Des Moines, perhaps tied to this blog, Cityview, the Business Record, the Des Moines Register, or an amalgamation them all.

 I’d like to see more wireless hotspots added, especially free hotspots with local content. I’d like to see virtual tours of places like the upcoming sculpture garden: wireless content I could access on my mobile device that would give me history and information about the art and the sights. I’d like to see Downtown well catalogued on common “find things near me” websites like Yelp.com.

I’d like to see Des Moines offer tax incentives for tech companies to move their businesses here, both for service companies and tech development.

I’d like to see projectors and speaker systems that took advantage of office buildings that close after 5 PM, holding free “movie nights” by projecting films on the sides of buildings and allowing people to gather on a lawn or in a parking lot (by bringing their own chairs) to watch, similar to the Friday Night Flicks held in the summer outside Iowa State dorms.

 I’d like to see downtown businesses sponsor LAN (local area network) gaming parties. I’d like to see Des Moines hold huge video game conventions, perhaps even sponsor an e-sports team to play games professionally. Professional gaming is a growing market, especially with young people. How awesome would it be to have a local team to cheer on? Des Moines doesn’t have any professional athletics teams, which has always bothered me, so let’s get a jump on the next new sport – e-gaming – and be one of the first cities with a professional e-sports team.

It gets pretty cold five months out of the year in Des Moines and people stay inside. So I’d like to see Des Moines become a center for all things virtual, transforming Des Moines into a real [silicon] valley.

Luke Bergeron is a tech writer for Triple Point Solutions, a computer networking company in Urbandale. He has a personal blog about tech issues, gaming, and writing at http://mispeled.wordpress.com.

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Email: valentineclouds@gmail.com
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About: Luke Bergeron is a tech writer for Triple Point Solutions, a computer networking company in Urbandale. He has a personal blog about tech issues, gaming, and writing at http://mispeled.wordpress.com.See Authors Posts (1)

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