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!

Continuing with our series, Des Moines Picture of the Week, this week’s picture comes from Flickr user Dave Corbett, also known as DSM PM and is of  the old train depot.

Dave says “I’m fairly new to Des Moines, and in most cases these photos are the first time I’ve seen these locations. Des Moines is a fascinating blend of new and old and I’m having a ball exploring.”

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

We would love to hear from our community about their experiences of living in downtown Des Moines. Below are some questions that we invite you submit answers to. You could answer all of them or just some of them.

1. What were the reasons that you chose to live downtown Des Moines as opposed to one of the suburbs?

2. What do you think Des Moines would need to change about downtown to entice more people to make the move downtown?

3. What’s your favorite thing to do for fun downtown?

4. What’s your favorite hang out place downtown?

5. When you have out-of-town company visit, what’s one the itinerary when showing them around downtown?

Would you prefer to submit a post or article for publication here on Living Downtown Des Moines.com? If you have a passion for living in downtown Des Moines or just experiencing the many things to do when visiting downtown, we’d love to hear from you. Sharing your own experiences with others can be very rewarding. William Shakespeare said it best, “What is the city but the people.”

So, the rules to be a guest blogger are really simple, a few article guidelines are listed below as well as the five-step process to getting your post published.

Article Guidelines

• Your post may be anywhere between 150 and 1500 words in length.
• Author bio should be no more than 50 words or 250 characters in length.
• Affiliate links to your own blog are encouraged.

Submission Process

1. Register for an account, if you don’t already have one or log in.
2. Write your post, you can write it in multiple sessions, saved as a draft.
3. Edit your post to your liking.
4. Submit your post for review when ready.
5. Your post is queued for review and for publishing.

We look forward to hearing from you and to sharing your experiences about Downtown Des Moines with our readers.

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

Brenton Skating Plaza is now offering bike rentals. Explore Des Moines’ scenic trails and experience Downtown in a whole new way! Mountain, Road, and Hybrid bikes available for rental (one hour, 1/2 day, full day, or 7 day rentals) starting as low as $12 per hour.

I’m very excited to see that we can now rent bikes downtown for two reasons:

1. I don’t own a bike, but sometimes get the inkling to want to go for a bike ride.
2. I just got back from Provincetown last Saturday and had rented a bike there for the week and had a great time riding it and exploring the Cape.

According to local news reports Des Moines’ first bicycle rental facility opened this week at Brenton Skate Plaza. Brenton has teamed up with Bike World to rent out bikes during the ice skating rink’s off season and in an effort to draw more people downtown, specifically to the downtown trails and views along the Principal Riverwalk.

Rentals are available seven days a week, weather permitting, until the ice skating rink opens back up in November. They are hoping the bike rental season to run annually from April to November.

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