Respected urban planner advises Davenport on ways to improve

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By Thomas Geyer | Friday, August 15, 2008 1:28 AM CDT | () comments

Urban planner Jeff Speck stood before about 80 people at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport and threw out to residents and community leaders idea after idea about how to improve downtown.

First, he said, change the traffic pattern downtown by re-striping the streets and making 3rd and 4th streets two-way thoroughfares.

“You’ve got to do it,” he said, emphasizing that one-way streets “make all sorts of things go wrong” for cities trying to grow their downtowns.

He also said that instead of throwing money out to every part of the city, invest in those areas that are most successful, such as 2nd Street, and grow from there.

Among Speck’s proposals, and he stressed they were only proposals and not plans, is providing bikers with complete streets so that if downtown is striped properly bikes can mix with traffic. He also recommends bringing more housing downtown.

He said the city needs a parking plan that is developed at the same time as plans for the downtown.

Also, the city should focus on historic rehabilitation and preservation, he said, adding that before erecting a new building see what can be done with existing old buildings.

Speck said the city is doing a fine job of creating art districts but that more should be done to attract artists.

“The farmers market should be moved,” Speck said. It is now on the edge of town, when it should be in the center of town where there is viable retail shops.

And, he said, “plant trees.”

The whole focus is to make the downtown pedestrian friendly, he said.

For people to walk, Speck said, “They have to be given a reason to walk. The areas must be safe, where people can be safe and feel safe. The areas have to be comfortable and interesting.”

What the city should be attracting these days is the millennium generation, which looks for a place to live and then looks for a job. They are the entrepreneurs of the future.

Other of his ideas include replacing the downtown YMCA with a supermarket, building housing that overlooks Modern Woodmen Park, bringing back The Dock restaurant and having a real pier on the river at Main Street. Also, the many bridges in the area should be lighted in some artistic form.

Speck’s 90-minute presentation had the crowd mesmerized.

But change will not happen overnight.

“He has recognized the folly of designing communities to accommodate cars,” said Davenport Parks Director Dan Sherman. “The biggest challenge is to make a number of people aware of these recommendations and recognize we need to make changes if we’re to have a happy and healthy community.”

Frank Klipsch, president and CEO of the Scott County Y, said all options are being looked at for either a new building for the downtown Y or renovations to the existing building that was erected in 1963.

“The downtown Y serves 1,500 to 1,800 people a day,” he said, adding that the Y must stay open as renovations are done or as a new building goes up.

Davenport Alderman Bill Boom, 3rd Ward, said, “I’m excited by a lot of the ideas, a number of which we’ve been thinking about a long time.”

He said the perception that the downtown is full of crime is false. It is the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown that have problems, but there are plans in the works to clean up those areas.

Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba said a lot has been done in the downtown over the past 20 years.

“We heard a lot of good, exciting ideas,” he said. “We want to draw the upwardly mobile young people and broaden the city’s tax base.”

Gluba added that with all the ideas swirling about, a more focused vision of what needs to take place is important.

Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.