From DowntownDesMoines.com Press Release:
DOWNTOWN DES MOINES – You may notice Walnut Street looks a little differently – that’s because some very visible improvements have been taking place over the past two weeks. Operation Downtown is in the process of painting all maroon crosswalk poles, light poles, utility stations/newspaper corrals, and bus shelters from a very dated maroon paint to a modern black satin. In addition to the new paint, benches as well as the bus shelters will be sanded and refinished.

“Operation Downtown is proud to be leading this effort. The new paint and refinished benches and bus shelters have made a tremendous beautification impact to the Walnut Street corridor,” says Kent Mauck, Operation Downtown Board President.

Work began on the corridor during the first part of September and is scheduled to be completed in the next two weeks. This beautification effort is a joint project of Operation Downtown and Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority.

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About Operation Downtown

Operation Downtown, also known as Self-Supported Municipal Improvement District (SSMID), is responsible for safe, clean and beautiful services in downtown Des Moines. Managed by the Downtown Community Alliance, Operation Downtown is funded by a one dollar per thousand dollars of assessed value tax on property within the boundary. For more information about Operation Downtown visit www.operationdowntown.com.

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.

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.

We wanted to say thanks to the residents and sponsors of the First Annual Downtown Garage Sale. We had a huge success for our first sale, and from what people are saying, they can’t wait till the next one. We will definitely have one next summer and will start planning it February or March. This time we will be asking for a representative from each housing unit complex downtown to be on our planning and organizing committee. Residents that sold saw up to $300 a person in revenue from the sale Saturday morning.

A special thanks goes out to the Downtown Neighborhood Association who helped with our advertising budget and to Nelson Construction for providing the venue for the sale and to the residents of 418 Liberty Luxury Condos for organizing the event.

Here are some more photos from the event.

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I saw this the other day, and thought if San Francisco is so hip to Twitter, and Twitter is free, why can’t the City of Des Moines do the same. Starting last week, the City of San of Francisco supports all 311 services via Twitter, with the help of Twitter CRM tool CoTweet.

Now citizens can send direct messages 24 hours a day to the sf311 Twitter account to report standard non-emergency city-related sightings (like pot holes), request street cleanings, and any other service already supported by the phone or website. This establishes San Francisco as the first major city to adopt a city-wide Twitter program of this magnitude.

City of Des Moines, let’s join the Twitter revolution!

City of Des Moines residents received the cities annual report this past weekend in the mail. The 58 page report contained a lot of information, some of it I wanted to highlight for our readers.

• City plans for 2009 include a “Walk Downtown” initiative with walking paths, points of interest and mileage. The complete re-design of Nollen Plaza will be finished…The expected completion of the Pappajohn Sculpture Park has the potential to bring millions of visitors downtown, and the City will continue to work with the downtown business community to “re-occupy” the downtown office buildings..and the completion of the Center Street pedestrian bridge.
• The total value of downtown properties has increased markedly since 2003. 2008 brought an increase of $74 million–the largest increase in the last six years.
• Residents continue to feel safe downtown. In 2008, 66% of those surveyed stated that they fell safe or very safe in downtown Des Moines, that is an increase of 10% from 2007.
• Housing units in the downtown area increased by 237 to a total of 4,400.
• Roughly one million people used Gray’s Lake and the trails systems.
• Local events’ attendance increased by 6.82% over 2007.
• 64% indicated satisfaction with the City’s entertainment destinations. Nine percent felt this was the area that should receive the most emphasis over the next two years.
• The City continues to look for ways to improve communication with citizens…the website is being redesigned (organized by topic) and more services will be available online.

Though the new report has not yet been placed online (as of the date of this posting), it will probably be located at: http://www.dmgov.org/performance/.

If you are still trying to figure out what to get someone on your list, The Downtown Gift Card, makes a lot of sense. This is perfect for those who either live or work downtown. The card can be used at more than a hundred downtown businesses.

Here’s just a sample:

A.K. O’Connors; Amici Espresso; Azalea Restaurant & Lounge; Brenton Skating Plaza; Carlton Cards; Centro; Civic Center of Greater Des Moines; Court Avenue Restaurant & Brewing Co.; Django; Dos Rios; el Bait Shop; Gateway Market & Cafe; Gong Fu Tea; Gym F/X; High Life Lounge; Hotel Fort Des Moines; Java Joes; Johnny’s Hall of Fame Sports Bar; Josephs Jewelers; Liars Club; Liberty Gifts; Palmer’s Deli and Market; People’s Court; Pure Paper; Raccoon River Brewing Co.; Science Center of Iowa & Blank IMAX Dome Theater; SMASH; South Union Bread Co.; Spaghetti Works; Splash! Seafood Bar and Grill; StageWest; Starbucks; Sticks; Stoner Studio Theater at the Civic Center; Temple for Performing Arts; The Book Store; The Grand Piano Bistro; The House of Bricks; The Royal Mile; The Sage Tree; The Stadium – FANtastic Sports Apparel; The Stadium Grill & Bar; The Village Bean; and Timbuktuu Coffee.

A complete list can be found at: http://www.downtowndesmoines.com/downtown_gift_card/gift_card_merchants.php

So Where Can You Buy the Gift Card?

Get your gift cards online or at the seasonal Downtown Des Moines Gift Card Store located in the Kaleidoscope Mall across from Palmer’s Deli from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Monday – Friday, the Downtown Community Alliance office at 700 Locust Street, Downtown Des Moines between the hours of 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday – Friday. or you can buy it online here.

Online gift card orders recieved after 2 p.m. will not be processed until the next business day. Cash, credit cards and corporate checks are accepted.

How does it work?
The Downtown Gift Card will work just like a credit card at participating merchants.
There is a $1 activation fee per card when you purchase the card. If ordering more than 10 cards, the activation fee is waived.

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As much as I hate the cold weather, and yesterday morning it was very cold and windy, I stood outside of City Hall with about a hundred other residents of Des Moines to join hundreds of cities across the country in a protest rally against the passage of Proposition 8 in California which took away the civil right of marriage in California. I’m still confused on how a majority is ever allowed to vote for a minorities rights, or why the idea of two people in loving committed relationship that want the same 1,138 rights afforded to straight-married couples is such a divisive issue. No one is asking for any church-recognized marriage, just the same civil-marriage that is required by law to be recognized as a marriage.

At least here in Des Moines, and in Iowa we may have a chance to show that we are still a progressive state on civil rights issues. On Dec. 9, the Iowa Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Varnum vs. Brien, which will determine whether gay marriage is legalized in Iowa.

You may not know it, but Iowa has a long history of being very progressive on civil rights issues. For example:

• Iowa public schools were desegregated a century before 1954’s Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka. 
• Iowa was the first to admit a woman to the bar, in 1869 – three years before the Supreme Court ruled that states could deny women the right to practice law. 
• Iowa abolished slavery a generation before the federal 13th Amendment. 
• Iowa had the the first black Miss America contestant. 
• Iowa had the first black athlete’s at it’s major universities. 

 
State Senator Matt McCoy said it best yesterday, “This is the civil rights fight of our time.”

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As the holiday shopping season starts, I encourage each of you to try and find a gift for someone at one of our downtown business. In this tough business economy, we need to make sure we support the local stores that we have, so that they will continue to thrive and bring more businesses downtown. I for one know that my friends from Atlanta and Florida will be getting t-shirts from Smash, and local friends gift certificates to downtown restaurants.

Back in 2004, the Buy Into the Circle program was launched to encourage Greater Des Moines area businesses to shift just five percent of their current out-of-area spending back into the local economy. It was poised as “not about spending MORE money, but about keeping the dollars you already spend local.” I think this applies not only to business but to us as individuals as well. 

Buy into the Circle TV Commercial

As we prepare for the big day tomorrow, I’ve complied a few interactive maps that you can play with. With me not originally being from Iowa, I was most interested to see how Polk County and the State of Iowa voted over the last six presidential races.

Zoom in and take a look at historical voting here in Iowa, especially Polk County, our home.

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