Kids, I'm not going to pretend to be a student of architecture and design but I know what I like and I know that the architecture and design of a building impacts a community, whether we want to admit it or not. Buildings help define the place we live and whether they are our houses or part of the heart of own communities, there should, by rights, be a certain amount of respect and awareness of the community around a parcel of land where new developers want to build.
When I first heard that New-Pi was looking at moving it's downtown location to the now empty lot (previous occupied by the Bus Station) at the corner of College/Gilbert, I was excited. This was a good opportunity for them a place where they could establish a larger facility with better parking and really secure a place in the heart of the community for decades to come. It wasn't a radical or a big move but it seemed sensible. Then the City had to get involved. They asked for nine proposals for the lot- some incorporated a new location of the Co-Op, some didn't and the vast majority of them (with the exception one maybe one six-story building proposal) were high rises.
Now, I've got nothing against high rises in their place. Marc Moen built the Plaza Towers- it took away a dingy, empty lot and it makes the Pedestrian Mall feel more complete overall. The steel and glass modernity of it contrast with the surrounding buildings but don't clash with them. That, to me, is how a new development should work. It should fit in with the buildings around it. (Whether we need a second one of these smack dab in the middle of the Ped Mall is another question entirely. I give the notion a hearty 'hell no' and 'oh HELL no' with TIF money included.)
But east of Gilbert? Another high rise? Thanks, but no thanks. It would be, to paraphrase Prince Charles of all people* 'a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend.' A lifelong townie, I don't usually find myself marching in lockstep with the crusty, geriatric townies that piss and moan about absolutely everything (and whom I'm convinced secretly wish they could have a University with all the employment, pensions and job security they could handle without any students whatsoever) but on this issue, I'll man the barricades with them. We don't need high density development pushing downtown further east into the College Green neighborhood. Those neighborhoods are under enough pressure from student housing pushing further and further outwards over the past couple of decades throwing high density development into that mix will only add to the pressure.
It's times like this that I wish developers would actually go look at the community they live in a bit more. I can't entirely blame them, after all- bigger and shinier means potentially more money for them down the line but they should go eat a sandwich on the bench next to Irving Weber downtown and ask themselves what he would build. Next time they go to a football game up at Kinnick, they should pause and really look at the place. I used to roll my eyes whenever the PA announcer would practically italicize the Historic in Historic Kinnick Stadium but if you take in the architecture of the place, it really is kind of neat. I think it's the brick arches that do it for me.
And there's a striking lack of community input for some of these projects that surprises me. Maybe I'm wrong about that- I hope I am but if there are public forums or open houses, they're really not that well advertised. And I think overall, that our community can do better and has the creativity to develop a vision better than the somewhat questionable idea of bringing a piece of the big city to Iowa... big cities, while fun in small doses seem to me to have too much traffic, lousy parking and a plethora of tall buildings. We're two thirds of the way there already at least during the school year, so I'm sure developers just figure, why not go the rest of the way?
Such a vision is cold and antiseptic and does not fit in with this community. I'll freely admit, kids that when the retail survey circulated around I took it, drank the Kool-Aid and got excited. I was for anything we could get downtown. Anything to diversify it. And then our mini Fro-yo boom hit and the locally owned Yotopia now finds itself with two arboreally themed fro-yo chains just blocks away from it (Orange Leaf and Aspen Leaf.) I'm still not 100% against chain retail stores downtown but I do believe that people want to spend money in this community and would and are supporting a variety of locally owned businesses. (I know where I'm getting Fro-Yo from, put it that way.) Coralville might keep winning the retail lottery by stealing things like Von Maur (TRAITORS!) But the TIF money is going to run out eventually and a forest of steel and glass carbuncles isn't a vision that can successfully compete- nor should it be a vision that we want here in Iowa City.
(*This is the speech that Chuckie gave- giving a firm thumbs down to a proposed addition to London's National Gallery that would have been uber-modern apparently. Chuckie spoke up and pointed out that new developments should be in line with the spirit and form of the community around them. The uber-modern addition never went forward. This ranks as probably one of the more useful things Prince Charles has ever done.)
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