XBk is super cool. Think it’s the same crew as VM running the show but sharing booking with the Wooly’s crew.
What’s happening to Des Moines?
- Thread starter ClonesTwenty1
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XBk is super cool. Think it’s the same crew as VM running the show but sharing booking with the Wooly’s crew.
It's a ******* dump honestly. About 1/2 of West Des Moines even looks garbage anymore. You really have to get out in the burbs to see nice infrastructure. If you think Des Moines is nice you've probably been spending too much time in like St. Jo, Missouri.
Correct, the person may not be homeless but mentally ill. My father-in-law's business partner's mom was caught taking a dump behind a Home Depot once. She was doing it for some time and they finally nabbed her. Totally put together upper-middle class lady but she just decided that was a good place to dump. It was never discussed again but it was clear she has some underlying mental health issues.
I don't know why people are blaming the city or why anyone is surprised.
#1 We were told that a large percentage of businesses were going to fail because of Covid. I use to walk by Java Joes pre-pandemic and it was never busy.
#2 Where I work we use to have 6-7k people downtown and since the pandemic have never reached 2k. Tons of businesses have went out of business downtown that no one is talking about. Even before the pandemic, most of these places were only open for the lunch business, which is a hard thing to do and nearly impossible when you lose over 1/2 that business.
#3 These types of places can't find help even when offering high wages.
#1 We were told that a large percentage of businesses were going to fail because of Covid. I use to walk by Java Joes pre-pandemic and it was never busy.
#2 Where I work we use to have 6-7k people downtown and since the pandemic have never reached 2k. Tons of businesses have went out of business downtown that no one is talking about. Even before the pandemic, most of these places were only open for the lunch business, which is a hard thing to do and nearly impossible when you lose over 1/2 that business.
#3 These types of places can't find help even when offering high wages.
It's a lot more complicated than that with the project failure. And there's some city failure to go along with that too (give some blame to another company, blackbird, as well)
The idea that this has anything to do with java joes though is silly. Also would just be pouring in bad money to fund a business model that seems doomed to failure if people aren't coming back downtown anytime soon.
Agree. Been to the Loop or River North in Chicago lately? Wasteland.
Jesus, why would they want to implement anything that those cities have done to tackle homelessness?
While we're at it, let's try what Alabama and Mississippi are doing in their schools to see if we can be more competitive academically.
It really comes down to making the decision that we are going to treat addicts and those mentally ill without their consent, or we're going to keep having a problem with homelessness.
I know HUD, for example puts out estimates of homeless people that are addicts that suggests it's not a majority, but honestly I think that's complete ******** to try to prevent the public from just saying "why should I help, it's just a bunch of tweakers?"
We are just about at 100,000 OD deaths per year. Clearly there are MANY times that number that are addicted to drugs, a lot of whom are homeless. Add in those with severe mental illness, and it's really a problem of addiction (in large part due to our government, pharmaceutical industry and physicians creating massive opioid appetite) and untreated mental illness (dried up gov't funding and hesitance toward treatment after humanitarian issues in institutions in the past) that express themselves in homelessness.
Treat people against their will and create housing for them with hard treatment requirements. There's no other option that will work. The word "crisis" gets thrown around for about everything. Addiction and untreated mental illness are the absolute two biggest humanitarian and economic crises with have in the US.
The problem is people look at other countries in Europe that seem to be doing well. They say, "Oh, Portugal or Denmark have 'housing first' programs, and they seem to work" and think you just start giving housing and continue to be a chicken **** about requiring treatment. Get into the details of how it is really working in some of these European countries, and the requirements are pretty stringent. You don't get an apartment then get to go out and use or skip treatment. In reality these are 'housing first, treatment pretty much immediately, and sobriety for good programs.'
I don't try and compare Des Moines to like Chicago. I'd rather compare it to like Boise, Ashville and other up and coming cities. The metro could use better city leaders for sure. The vibe that Des Moines had in the 2000s is gone.
Wasn't saying that, just saying that the past few years has been a sh*tshow for downtowns everywhere, big and small. It's not unique to DSM.
As younger people get older and start to have families and disposable income they come to realize that living downtown absolutely sucks.
It was a bubble just waiting to pop with a smaller generation coming behind the millennials.
It was a bubble just waiting to pop with a smaller generation coming behind the millennials.
I actually know some older retirees that moved "close to downtown" in a loft.
I would be able to handle East Village but not Court Ave area.
This is silly. The amount of suburban housing as compared to the downtown units is so overwhelmingly skewed to the former that overbuilding is not the problem downtown. Further, having options has almost always worked out better.
It's impressive how wrong this is.
Live wherever you want, but more and more people want to live in cities and downtowns.
As someone who works in a commercial real estate. You could not be more wrong about this. Des Moines needs WAY more quality downtown housing options. The townhome style with a ground floor garage are flying off the market. I know of two major buildings near Court that have at least 33%+ of the apartments are leased to Gen X and older. Even pre-pandemic, boomers and empty nesters were moving downtown for less maintenance, access to entertainment and dining
It depends on what city you are in. There are way more people going back to urban living than there have been in a while. I'd love to live in like Downtown Nashville or in New Orleans. But I'd have no desire to live in downtown Phoenix.
There's a $100 mil event center being built in Waukee. National signing agency with national touring acts. Hopefully will help fill the void that covid left.
Or after a neighbor continued to let their dog **** in your yard so you had to return the favor. Allegedly
I think Des Moines price point for downtown is high. I don't see that big of a difference between several cities I have visited in my travels and those cities are all more desirable than Des Moines to live in.
That seems like a wildly different market segment. But something else will spring up. The Mews was probably due, Covid or not.
