Ok Des Moines residents, now is your chance to truly have your voice heard. I am honored to be a member of the Des Moines Social Club Board of Directors Big Ideas subcommittee — we have been tasked with creating the next Big Idea for the city. We’re local young professional leaders who are eager to view the feedback from this post and put the wheels in motion to bring the concepts to reality. So, please let us know your thoughts so we can work to bring it all together:
Picture courtesy of Jake Boyd Photography
We want you to chime in via the comments section below to let us know what you want to see in Des Moines.
What activities do you think Des Moines needs?
What new economic improvements do you think the leaders in Des Moines need to focus on?
If Des Moines had ____ it would be a top notch city!
These are just a few of the questions we have provided to steer your thought process, but we hope you come up with many more. We honestly want to hear what improvements you are looking for. Of course, we will moderate the conversation, so please keep the comments constructive and realistic – Des Moines is not going to have a Times Square or mountains in the next 5 years. (Or ever) But, Des Moines could have a much more 24/7 lifestyle if you want it. Please leave us your thoughts and ideas on how to execute them.
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Des Moines need more music. Events that not only help support nationally touring acts but also help local bands more. It’d also be cool to have more indie shops like finders creepers but with different stuff for sale. Kind of like if down town was a place to got for things other than drinking and work. I think that is the difference between a city and a town.
Des Moines could have a much more 24/7 lifestyle if you want it<<<< NO I dont want it!!
I like Des moines just the way it is now… no more population, no more expanding my freeway. It is just right for me.. Born and raised here and NO ONE reps Des Moines like I do and there is no place else I would rather live!!
Walnut Street needs to be turned into a shopping district with stores not found in big-box malls. The East Village has done a great job of developing boutique stores that are unique. A concerted effort needs to be made to seriously attract business to this corridor which would compliment the Court Avenue Entertainment District. This will take years, but would help revitalize downtown and bring people to the core for reasons other than work.
This is an excellent idea. There is plenty of vacant building space–the Younkers building and first floor of the Kaleidoscope have been empty for years.
I agree with Mr. Von Hammer, but I will say Des Moines has made great strides in the music category! 80/35 along with more national acts like The Black Keys, AC/DC and Dropkick Murphy’s to name a few, the DM music scene budding before our eyes.
To me, the biggest thing downtown Des Moines needs is more street life. We need people to get out of the skywalk and roam the streets. (Speaking of the skywalk, it could use a major makeover). We need the restaurants and shops that are downtown already to be open on the weekends so that people come there to shop and play. Like Mr. Von Hammer said, we need a variety of shops along the street, similar to what the East Village has now. Street vendors and artists would also add a lot more life.
Downtown desperately needs a grocery story of sorts, a video rental store (Best Place Ever Downtown?) and other essentials in order to continue to attract people to live there. As the city grows–and I hate to burst your bubble BD, but in order for our city to thrive and survive it has to grow and continue to improve–public transportation improvements will be the next big step. I would personally love to be able to live without a car, but right now I don’t see that as feasible. (Bike lane additions have been great, and I hope the city continues to add them).
Recently, young professionals have stepping up, being heard, creating new organizations and helping move the city forward. If this continues, and we all continue to support locally grown businesses and entrepreneurs, the city will do great things!
Dave Murrin-von Ebers
http://www.honeybadgershirts.com
We need high speed rail to Omaha, Minneapolis, Chicago and Kansas City from downtown Des Moines, or a low cost air carrier to come into our market–Jet Blue or Southwest needs to be here.
Exactly. Any other improvements seem to me to depend upon availability, ease, and affordability of transportation, preferably air transportation. We are not “fly over” simply because there is no reason to stop. There is no way to stop here, nor to easily get out once here. It’s the main problem with life here, as I have experienced it as a transplant.
Am I the only person who thinks that the DSM skywalk system is ridiculously underutilized? I am all for a 24/7 downtown area but what about all year? Add more activities and businesses in the skywalk (movie theaters, live theater, books stores, art galleries, dessert cafe’s, piano bars, wine shops, gourmet food shops, scrapbooking stores, pottery and ceramics workshops, yoga studios, juice bars, putting greens…you get the idea) so that people have a reason to use the skywalk after the workday is done and, more importantly, on weekends. A perfect template for this kind of project would be Watertower Place in Chicago.
Prior to moving back to Des Moines, I lived in Indianapolis. Indianapolis has something interesting – a mall downtown. It’s built with in the facade of the original buildings downtown (so it doesn’t look a mall) and is intermingled amongst office buildings and local shops. It occurred to me the other day when walking through the skywalk that Des Moines has a mall downtown, too – the Kaleidoscope or Hub or whatever it’s called. The difference is that the Kaleidoscope is more of a strip mall indoors than a proper mall. I shop there (mainly for lunch) because I’m already downtown; it’s not a destination point and its closed by late afternoon, regardless.
The mall in Indy, Circle Centre, is a destination, has ample & cheap downtown parking (underground) and has several coffee shops, restaurants, bars, sports venues and a movie theater.
I’m not saying we need a mall downtown, per se, but I’d love some of the empty office space and strip mall-close early-type places turn into entertainment venues worthy of becoming a destination.
Oh yeah, light rail in town would be great, too.
What activities do you think Des Moines needs?
-A convention that will bring in the outsiders, tourists. Whether it is a comic con type thing, or some entrepreneur thing- just something that will bring in loyalists, celebrities, or ideas.
What new economic improvements do you think the leaders in Des Moines need to focus on?
-Reinstate the film tax credit, but this time do it right. This would open so many doors.
If Des Moines had ____ it would be a top notch city!
-A train connecting Chicago, Iowa City, Des Moines, and Omaha. And within Des Moines, connecting the East Village, Downtown, Ingersoll, Beaverdale, 86th street, Valley Junction, and West Des Moines.
I have to say that BD’s earlier comment “no more population, no more expanding my freeway. It is just right for me” seems a little sort sighted.
The city will expand regardless, there is no control over that. What we can hope to achieve is that the expansion is a planned effort to offer opportunities to people that can benefit the community.
To revitalize Des Moines would aid in the retention of our good people, yound minds and educated young professionals that may presently be moving away to other cities that provide these opportunities that Des Moines may be lacking in. This creates a “brain drain” and benefits no one, especially people like BD who have lived here all their lives and hopefully would to see the CIty improve if it can’t stay the same. Not get worse.
Our best effort for the inevitable development/expansion of Des Moines is a planned one with the right people to sustain the good way of life that we in the Midwest are accustomed to. The only way to do that is to give the right people a reason to stay in Des Moines.
I second SKH’s comment for more non restaurant/bar entertainment options downtown. When I was last in Des Moines (July), downtown seemed to be heading a little bit the way of Iowa City – too much focus on nightlife. I think things like movie theaters, bowling alleys, bookstores, etc would help bring more families into downtown in evenings (skating rink, ICubs being examples of these types of things already available), make it more of a lifestyle destination.
I agree that we need more options for families downtown. We have a lot of bars and nightlife, and those things are great. But bookstores, a great family pizza place, inexpensive live entertainment that’s suitable for all ages, expanded winter farmer’s markets… all that would bring families downtown, which may build an entire new generation who will fall in love with downtown and keep coming back!
The Des Moines area’s number one priority should be maintaining its top billing as the best place in America to raise a family.
If we are seeking an attraction that will put us “on the map,” let’s do something world-class, something highly educational, something unprecedented, something worth a train ride to the Heartland, something worth visiting more than once, something more “must-do” than Disney World, something that will make tourists envy those of us who live here.
My idea is a theme-park-sized, highly-detailed, topographical map of the world. If the map were one mile square, each foot would represent approximately five miles. Corporate and individual sponsors would provide funding for sections of the world map and keep them current. It would be an all-day and return-often amusement park. Visitors could wear special glasses that reveal geographical boundaries, cities, roads, names of bodies of water and mountains, etc. Headphones would allow visitors to hear up-to-the-minute news feeds and historical information for each part of the world they visit. I cannot imagine a more effective and fun way to learn history and geography and current events than to spend a few days walking the world.
Great list of ideas and questions guys! Keep ‘em coming!!
In June, I moved here from Mpls/St. Paul. The most immediate thing I noticed is that (other than a Whole Foods and a Tiffany’s), there’s no lack here in the retail arena. Plus, there’s a boatload of great indie restaurants.
What’s painfully missing, though, are true NATIONAL music acts coming through every week. I got so spoiled in the Twin Cities! Everyone came there, often twice a year. It’s not like we don’t have the venues here, we do. We don’t have the bands.
Oh, and.. we need a real jazz club. All jazz, all the time, with dinner service and a hip bar. Really.
Funding (both private and public) for arts activities, such as The Current radio station in St. Paul / Minneapolis. We have a lot to learn from our neighbors to the north.
DES MOINES NEEDS TO GET THIS DAMN MUSIC SCENE TOGETHER AND START HAVING FRIKKIN ‘HOUSE SHOWS’ FOR FREE AND CHEAP!! THIS
WILL HELP STIMULATE PEOPLE TO START GOING TO SHOWS AND THEREFORE HEARING ABOUT LOCAL BANDS… THEN PEOPLE MIGHT ACTUALLY THINK
ABOUT PAYING… $5 (AND UP) TO SEE A LOCAL BAND! UNTIL THEN… THE DM MUSIC SCENE WILL CONTINUE TO TRICKLE FORWARD AT A SNAIL CRAWL.
THE OLD ‘HOUSE SHOW’ HOUSES WE HAD LIKE THIS ‘THE BLACK MARKET FETUS HOUSE’ AND A FEW OTHERS ARE LONG GONE NOW… WE NO LONGER HAVE THE
‘FALLOUT SHELTER’, IT HAS BEEN GONE FOR YEARS… THERE IS NOWHERE FOR LOCAL PUNK/METAL BANDS (OR ANY TYPE OF NON-MAINSTREAM BANDS) TO
PLAY THAT ISN’T A VENUE THAT CHARGES AN ARM AND A LEG TO GET IN.. AND THEN THE OTHER ARM AND LEG FOR THE ‘CHEAPEST’ BEER (WE USUALLY
DRINK PBR’S… THOSE SHOULD NEVER BE MORE THAN $1.50) UNTIL WE FIX THIS PROBLEM OF NOT HAVING ‘HOUSE SHOW’ VENUES THE DM MUSIC SCENE
WILL CONTINUE TO BE LAUGHED AT BY ALL THE OTHER STATES IN THE MIDWEST (this is a problem that should be addressed by the younger bands mainly…
the older bands have already done this years ago and are still owning faces around town… they put in their work already) This would really
help the des moines music scene compete with neighboring cities and probably help put Des Moines on the map musically.
We need more action and less ‘couch revolutionary’ talk. We need those among us to support the badass venues (H.O.B & Vaudeville Mews) as well as the badass art galleries (finders creepers) or else we will wake up one day and they will be gone… Like Harry mary’s or the ‘fallout shelter’… Organize and support people!
(1) a bowling alley downtown (2) a rooftop bar downtown (3) StartupCity -> http://spne.ws/93s, (4) all the old parking meters need to be replaced with SmartCard meters, and (5) everything Geoff Wood said above.
Thanks Shane and all of the comments. All the info has been submitted to the Board for review, we’ll update soon.