Douglas Avenue Corridor Study Launched In Des Moines

DES MOINES, IA — Brian O’Leary moved to the Lower Beaver neighborhood nine years ago and has been happy with the area where he chose to live. But while the neighborhood is nice, he said, its main corridor, Douglas Avenue, needs some help.

The nagging thought that something should be done to make Douglas more vibrant and a destination area for shoppers and diners took shape two years ago at discussions among a business relations committee of the Lower Beaver Neighborhood Association. But when nothing happened, the group almost disbanded. Instead, it morphed into the Douglas Avenue Coalition and the effort at area revitalization was born.

“We wanted to see businesses that we wanted to frequent along Douglas Avenue and we wanted to see vacancies gone, a better look, walkability,” said O’Leary, a computer programmer who works in Johnston and has seen multiple new businesses crop up in that community.

Now, he believes, is the time for Douglas Avenue to reap similar rewards. City and county officials also are ready to look at what can be done. After Polk County provided grant money to help the coalition start a corridor study process — including $25,000 for an engineering study — the Des Moines City Council responded with unanimous support and $174,000 to hire RDG Planning & Design that will help guide neighbors through the six- to eight-month process of looking at how the busy street can be revitalized and what obstacles might be in the way.

The group will hold its first public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Plaza Lanes and is hoping to hear from a mix of neighborhood stakeholders: residents, business owners, nonprofit groups and community leaders. What they want are ideas that can lead to transformation.

The corridor study will look at a nearly three-mile stretch of Douglas from Euclid Avenue/the Des Moines River on the east end to Merle Hay Road on the west end. The goal is to find ways to attract long-term, quality businesses that will be a destination for people from throughout the metro area. They’ll study aesthetics and streetscape, property availability and redevelopment potential, traffic-calming measures and safety issues.

“Right now it’s all about participation,” said O’Leary. “We need the ideas. We don’t want to hear about ideas in five months or even three months; we need ideas on the front end.”

Aside from ideas, O’Leary said the group wants to know “whether there’s something they see that’s wrong about the corridor, or something that’s right. It’s going to be successful if we get input.

“Anything’s on the table,” he told Patch. “People just want change.”

Volunteers have reached out to business owners, residents and area groups to share plans and they have heard the excitement among people eager for new development and those concerned about how they might be affected by any changes.

Jeremy Geerdes, pastor at Debra Heights Wesleyan Church and a member of the coalition, has been in the neighborhood 15 years and said he is ready to see progress. “We want a vibrant commercial corridor and right now we have a stagnant corridor," he told Patch. "There are a lot of vacancies. A lot of people drive by and don’t stop.”

The corridor improvement process will be much like those that have taken place in other areas of the city, including Ingersoll Avenue, Grand Avenue, and the Beaverdale business district. But O’Leary said the three-mile Douglas study is the largest scale plan city has done. Once recommendations and priorities are identified, the plan will be presented to the city for approval. Then components would be implemented in stages.

The hope is that Douglas Avenue will be a destination site for shopping and dining and it will be home to long-term businesses that will put down roots and stay.

The process faces several challenges, from getting buy-in among residents and businesses to dealing with out-of-state property owners in some of the commercial areas. Plus, lot sizes are awkward and may pose a challenge to potential businesses and there is infrastructure dating to the 1950’s and ‘60s. In addition, areas of the corridor are lacking in broadband or telecommunication service, and a few businesses even remain on septic systems.

Geerdes said another challenge is the lack of “a critical max area,” or one defining location along the street. “There are small nodes of businesses at (intersections with) Merle Hay and at MLK, and smaller yet at 38th Street and 50th Street,” he said.

The corridor has approximately 80 businesses mixed among single-family and multi-family housing along the street. Coalition members said while the neighborhood is safe, there have been trouble spots among some multi-family housing units and an equally concerning problem is that some commercial properties languish or lose tenants because property owners aren’t interested in improving or maintaining buildings.

But there have been success stories: Java Joes Coffeehouse and Donut Hut are popular neighborhood attractions; Plaza Lanes, Dairy Queen and Payless Shoes have been mainstays for decades; Moore Elementary School is reopened and updated; and the Merle Hay intersection has seen a rebirth in recent years.

And the momentum is finally building for the Douglas corridor after starting with a few people meeting in a church basement then swelling to 75 people at the most recent planning meeting.

“Seeing that response is what inspires me,” Geerdes said. “The fact is there are a lot of people in the area that are ready to see this thing happen. With the level of interest we’ve seen this early in the process, it encourages us to say 'let’s keep going.'”

“It’s been two years and it’s super exciting now because we’re finally here,” O’Leary said.

Douglas Avenue Coalition

Public input meeting: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, at Plaza Lanes VIP room, 2701 Douglas Ave.

The process: Public participation will be important as revitalization talks continue into spring. Gathering input and analyzing and assessing the corridor will take place this month. Plan recommendations will be made and prioritized from December through February and a plan report will be made in mid-winter, with the target of presenting it for City Council approval in April or May.

How to help: Share your vision at public meetings, join the coalition to help spread the word, donate to help fund the mission. The Douglas Avenue Coalition is a nonprofit group and donations may be made online.

Contact them: DouglasAve.org, @DouglasAveDSM, facebook.com/DouglasAveDSM