~ not in DM proper so cap city guy hates it
City Council Approves 40-Acre Entertainment District
- Thread starter CoachHines3
- Start date
~ not in DM proper so cap city guy hates it
One concrete example in KC is Prairie Fire. It's a fake urban area just like this. Bars, restaurants, shopping, museum, movies, major shopping like Scheels, Von Maur right down the road. Tons of crappy apartments.
It's a slam dunk. I even ate there this past weekend, much to my chagrin.
You're not wrong, and our state and local laws make anything other (mostly) large chain projects work. Go to any neighborhood in Chicago, MPLS, St Louis, etc and you'll have corner bars and restaurants. In places like Ankeny they (your government) requires so much land that mom and pop places can't build like that. They force people into sprawl by forcing people to accommodate parking.
Go to any outer ring suburb of those cities and you have the same chains with the same footprint with the same giant parking lots.
I really think some people don’t realize big cities have the same stuff in their less dense areas. I think the Des Moines metro does a decent job of trying to add more dense stuff like this. There just aren’t enough people in dense enough areas for actual big city development outside of downtown. I’m hoping we are going to continue to get better on that but it’s still going to be a while.
....yeah...and given the proximity to Jordan Creek and the overall state of brick and mortar retail in general looking forward, this area probably doesn't have a chance to land big retailers such as these nearby.
Yep....cities are in trouble and it is not getting any better. The shiny and new we see around us, fools our eyes that all is well but there are future financial obligations that cities are strapping themselves with that will come due someday. It is not financially sustainable long term to build in a way that is so spread-out. Property taxes don't begin to pay for the miles and miles of above and below ground infrastructure maintenance and repair costs it takes (not to mention services - police fire, etc.)
The most recent example, Medina, WA. Home to the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezo. Cities are building in a way that is not sustainable.....and now a few generation later, it is all starting to catch up with us. https://mynorthwest.com/1555995/medina-gates-budget-taxes/
When I opened the thread and saw the development was in Waukee (and not downtown), I was disappointed there were already 4 replies before he could take a **** on it
How could tiny rural towns like Waukee and Ankeny ever think of supporting restaurants and bars that hold a few hundred people... as if that many people have working cars and a desire to leave their sleepy suburban houses.
As a Waukee resident, and knowing some of the companies considering going into that area, this should do well. Yes, I get that people like to be skeptical, as I naturally am as well, but Waukee has been pretty careful and thoughtful with their future planning, even as aggressive as it might seem. With pretty easily forecastable growth over the next 15-20 years, this should have a higher than normal chance of success. Being very easy to access with Grand Prairie and the interstate, makes it less of an ordeal to access than many competing places.
With some of the large corporations like Ikea and other weekend-trip type entities doing site studies in the area, as well as the new sports complex already approved, it should have some good partners.
With some of the large corporations like Ikea and other weekend-trip type entities doing site studies in the area, as well as the new sports complex already approved, it should have some good partners.
Be interesting if you addressed the actual concerns I listed in the thread....as opposed to creating our own straw man argument and then slaying it.
Curious...do you have firsthand knowledge about IKEA sniffing around here? To date, they do not locate in metro's as small as DSM.....not even close. This would be a major change for them way beyond their current standards.
I’m sympathetic to your thoughts and am worried about new growth but your argument really boils down to Suburbs bad. We need to make sure that sustainable development takes place but without basically doing feasibility studies and really getting into the weeds it’s hard to discuss.
I don't have the expertise to know whether this will succeed or fail - though my gut says it will probably do fine but not live up to its billing - but as soon as I saw the developer say they had talked to IKEA, my skepticism went up in a big way. But like you said, perhaps IKEA is looking at newer/smaller concepts.
"Suburbs is bad" is far to simplistic. It is the development patterns themselves that dictate if an area will be financially sustainable long term or not. There are first ring suburbs in many US cities that have healthy areas of traditional development patterns that easily generate enough property tax revenue to pay for themselves. Likewise, there are plenty of areas in all US central/core cities that have surburban development patterns that are a net drain on the cities finances.
The analysis has been done. We know how do do this. You just have to have today's interested parties actually look long term vs short term when building new developments. Problem is, looking long term isn't actually our strong suit these days at several levels of gov't.
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It is to simplistic but it’s the reality of a sports message board. People don’t want to spend all day looking in detail at the studies done about development patterns.
That would be interesting.. unfortunately, when discussing something on the internet with someone who holds a fanatical position on the topic, the historical ROI of time is generally sub-par: at the moment this is as much time as I'm able to invest.
How about this, though: we can bookmark this thread and revisit it in 5 years when this district is in shambles
5 yrs? Really? You may want to stop while you're already so far behind. We'll know very little about this area in 5 years (other than what may have started to get built or not)...but kudos for starting another straw-man ..
This screams "If you build it, they will come" and that's terrible in CRE development this late into a cycle.
Land acq is high, labor right now is high> Maybe if this were to be built in the triangle area of old-town Waukee or on the elevator site I'd have confidence
Land acq is high, labor right now is high> Maybe if this were to be built in the triangle area of old-town Waukee or on the elevator site I'd have confidence
