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Five years after tornado, local leaders envision future of downtown area

By Robert Maharry 10 min read

(Editor's note: This is the sixth and final installment in a series of stories looking back at the July 19, 2018 EF-3 tornado leading up to the fifth anniversary, but also looking forward and detailing rebuilding and revitalization efforts since then.)

Five years have officially passed since the July 19, 2018, EF-3 tornado ripped through Marshalltown and left the downtown area in shambles, and thousands of words have been written about that day in this publication and many others. Television crews have come and gone, and rebuilding and revitalization efforts have been documented at great length. But a simple and yet incredibly daunting question still lies in front of local leaders: what comes next?

Neither Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO John Hall nor Marshalltown Central Business District Executive Director Deb Millizer held their current titles when the storm hit -- Millizer came to her role in 2019 and Hall to his in 2021. Nonetheless, both have been heavily involved in the recovery process and crafting the answer to the aforementioned question, and it isn't a task they take lightly.

Conventional wisdom generally says it takes about 10 years to fully recover from a major natural disaster, and despite the work that remains to be done, both Hall and Millizer feel they're headed in the right direction at the halfway point.

"Our community leaders said that they wanted to move things forward faster. To sit here at five years out and say 'Well, we've really accomplished that' is just not true. We've made some great strides and some tremendous progress, but if we can get here in another two, three, four years and say 'Hey, we're where we wanna be,' it means we accelerated that timeline," Hall said. "And I think that bringing in leaders like Deb or myself who weren't here during that disaster allows us to bring the perspective and not relying on the disaster as the rationale for why we aren't, but instead using the drive and energy of new leadership to say 'Well, what can we be?'"

Citing the two organizations' new shared office space in the old Hopkins building at 34. W. Main St., which was made possible through a revitalization project completed by Janell Carter and Cutler Developments, as an example -- as well as Jeff Simms' building at 26 E. Main St. -- Hall hopes other fledgling entrepreneurs will be inspired to take a chance on opening a business downtown after renovations are finished.

"(It's) hopefully gonna give courage to more business owners or more folks that are sitting on the sidelines that are saying 'Hey, I wanna own a building downtown. I wanna leave a legacy downtown. I wanna revitalize a space into something incredible.' We'll hopefully draw them in and get them to say yes to doing more down here," Hall said. "We've got some incredible business mix downtown right now from large employers that allow for some really strong daytime traffic in our downtown. What I'm really excited to see is continuing to bolster that nighttime traffic that's built in -- so the upper story residentials -- that will just give more courage to more business owners to say yes to opening a small business downtown but then also to staying open longer hours because there's gonna be more traffic at all times of day."

And while there's plenty of cause for optimism, they're well aware the process won't come without challenges. Several buildings damaged beyond repair have been demolished -- including at prime locations like the southwest intersection of Center and Main Street and at Main and First Street -- but local leaders must now find the developers and contractors willing to invest the capital in constructing something new to take their place. Additionally, several downtown buildings remain vacant and will require major improvements before a business could open.

"Right now, we do have some buildings that are vacant, and they need some TLC and some love. And those buildings, some of them are being touched with the downtown revitalization grant," Millizer said. "The other ones, we're hoping to move those building owners to sell those buildings or make those buildings vital so that they can be utilized for the downtown."

Millizer added that she frequently receives calls from prospective business owners inquiring about downtown space, and she commended the city for taking possession of some vacant buildings that will eventually be put out for bid, although she later added that the pandemic and the closure of the courthouse created even more challenges for properties tied up in litigation at the time.

"It's important that we are recruiting businesses that complement the current businesses that we have, and the best way to recruit new businesses as well, or a piece of it, is to retain the businesses that we have and really support them," she said.

Since the city adopted the 90-page Downtown Master Plan and the Downtown Implementation Plan, leaders have solicited community input on what the residents and businesspeople of Marshalltown would like the district to look like in the future, and the results of the Main Street Market Analysis were recently revealed.

According to Millizer, some of the top needs include a coffee shop (a new one should be opened by the end of the summer), men's and women's clothing stores and niche entertainment options like ax-throwing and arcade bars. One of the most interesting findings was that the biggest point of pride downtown is the now reopened courthouse, and Hall was thankful for county leadership past and present having the courage to maintain the classic design instead of opting to rebuild what would ultimately be a more cookie cutter modern structure.

"The Main Street Market Analysis is a really great tool for not only ensuring that the pulse of what folks are looking for kind of mirrors what a lot of us are already thinking, but (it) also works to get folks about what can be so that when those stores come, they can say 'Oh, I remember giving that input before,'" Hall said. "And it just helps endear themselves back to the community because they feel like they have ownership in something that happened, or maybe it'll inspire them to become an entrepreneur because they'll have seen the results of the survey they remember taking and say 'Hey, I've been having that idea for months. Why don't I just take that step?'"

For all of these dreams to be realized, the city must also provide the infrastructure to support them, which is a main reason visitors to downtown currently see State Street torn up and shut down to traffic as part of a major overhaul. Main Street is up next, with construction expected to begin in late 2024 or early 2025, and the reconstruction of both major roadways is estimated to cost around $30 million in all.

Public Works Director Heather Thomas explained that the upgrades will include storm, sanitary and water along with the streets and sidewalks that will provide for "amenity zones" with aesthetically pleasing benches, bike racks, trash cans, landscaping and potentially some creative placemaking, wayfinding signs and artistic elements.

"We're hoping that that facelift of downtown invites more pedestrians to come out and enjoy downtown, spend time downtown and make it a little more walkable and not so much, you know, drive to a store, shop at that one store, hop back in their car and then leave," Thomas said. "They're trying to make an environment that is more walkable. You may stop at one store (to) pick up a piece of clothing, stop at another (to) grab a dessert and kind of spend time downtown."

During discussions about replacing some of the city's water mains last year, it was mentioned that some were well over 100 years old, and as Thomas put it, while potential business owners may not know that when they're exploring potential sites, aged infrastructure almost always has a higher chance of failing and causing problems down the road.

City Planner Hector Hernandez-Morales, a 2016 MHS graduate, was about a month away from heading off to Iowa State when the tornado damaged his family's home, and he said visiting major European cities helped him to realize just how important a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly downtown district is to the vitality of a community.

"Our Downtown Master Plan for Marshalltown includes a lot of what our residents want, and we're slowly but surely working towards that," Hernandez-Morales said. "I would appreciate having more walkability, feeling safe downtown, not being too worried about any cars getting in the way and making it safer for biking and pedestrians."

He's also hopeful that once a new city administrator and housing and community development director are hired, progress will resume on redeveloping brownfields lots and bringing in mixed-use commercial projects. Although he's barely over a year into the job and currently working without a direct supervisor, Hernandez-Morales is confident about the future of the community where he grew up and returned to after obtaining his degree.

"It's gonna take a lot of commitment and involvement from our community members and a lot of government support, too. If there's a change we need to do, like an amendment or a zoning amendment, we'll have to get full support from our council members and also our community members and let them know we're working toward our Downtown Master Plan," he said.

Echoing a major aspect of recent Chamber banquet speaker Jeff Siegler's keynote address -- and paraphrasing what has seemingly become Hall's catchphrase, "It's another great day in Marshalltown" -- Millizer expressed optimism that the revitalization process will allow residents and leaders to develop "what they want" instead of simply accepting the way things are.

"We deserve great things here in Marshalltown. We deserve to have places where we feel comfortable in, that are beautiful, and we deserve to shop at places that serve our needs and all of that. We deserve great things. We don't have to settle for mediocre," she said. "We have opportunities to increase our quality of life, and I think that everybody's really focused on that."

Hall shared similar thoughts and challenged residents, business owners and local officials to think big as they map out the future.

"If we take those resources and we invest them into what we know will be beautiful and what will be great for the community, the longevity of those will outlive all of us, and that sense of pride and investment in the community will continue to strengthen," he said. "As we navigate these tough times for our community and for our city and hope to strive forward, it's gonna take investment that is gonna make people uncomfortable at times, but if we do it, we know that the point of pride and the sense of community and that recognition that we deserve great things is there."

And while anyone who was in Marshalltown on that day five years ago likely wishes it would've hit anywhere but here, the tornado has, in some ways, created a golden opportunity to replace the rubble and destruction with something better that will last for generations.

"I don't know that without the tornado, the revitalization that we're doing downtown, including taking some of these older buildings down, making green spaces, making pocket park type areas, making additional properties available for interested developers that want to bring additional momentum downtown, I don't think that would've happened," Thomas said. "Unfortunately, the tornado was a disaster, but it's really provided an opportunity for the city to take that, move forward and improve downtown much further than what it would've been without the tornado."

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