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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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Business Hours | Downtown Core | Retail | Suggestions | Technology