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Residents cast votes to determine downtown design

By Lana Bradstream 5 min read

Marshalltown residents were given the chance to submit votes for desired revitalized downtown features at the Main Street Downtown Implementation meeting Tuesday evening.

Held in the Veterans Coliseum and hosted by Bolton & Menk, around 85 people were in attendance. The meeting was opened by Marshalltown City Administrator Joe Gaa, who gave the crowd some homework.

"This project has been progressing through design and the city, along with their design team, are at a critical stage where we'd like to collect stakeholder feedback regarding the direction of critical design elements," he said. "This is a really important homework assignment."

Gaa said the feedback provided by the attendees will be utilized by Bolton & Menk and taken back to the Marshalltown City Council soon.

"You're going to be shaping the future of Main Street," he said.

Before votes were cast, a presentation on options were provided. Bolton & Menk Project Engineer Greg Broussard provided some background information on the project, which includes downtown Main and Center streets. He said there would be two-way traffic, rather than one-way. Options for parking include either back-in angle, which would provide 225 spaces or parallel, which would allow for 219 spaces. Landscape Designer Natalie Jensen said the back-in parking would be a great opportunity.

"We would shift road alignment to allow space for back-in angle parking, and we would remove the bike lanes on Main Street," she said. "This would reduce the sidewalks by about a foot and a half. Currently, the sidewalks are 16 feet, and then they would be 14.5 feet."

For parallel parking, Jensen said it would be on both sides of the street, and the bike lanes would be gone. That would also increase the size of the sidewalks from 16 feet to 18.5 feet.

Broussard also said there will be other new aspects of downtown Marshalltown when all is said and done.

"We're going to have trees," Broussard said. "We're going to have different type of pavers, different type of seating, different streetscape features."

Jensen told the crowd the addition of trees, of which there are very few currently, would add shade in the summer.

"In the winter, we're using deciduous trees so that would provide snow melt in the winter months because there's no leaves," she said.

Treating the block north of the Marshall County Courthouse as an event block would also be beneficial, according to Jensen. She said Oktemberfest could occur there, and it might feature amenities such as raised places for people to sit. Narrower sidewalks would provide placement for trees, different paving and places for people to sit. She said they are proposing mountable curbs which will allow easier festival access for disabled residents and overhead festival lighting.

Landscape Architect Britton Jones said the courthouse block is very important to downtown and wants the design to be unique to Marshalltown. He showed slides of unique courthouse blocks from locations such as Springfield, Ill. and Denton, Texas.

Jones briefly spoke about specific features, such as designs in the concrete and banner placement.

"You could do things like crosswalk murals, and those are things you could change out every few years," he said. "We're looking at some of these different options of creative placemaking."

Senior Project Communications Specialist Allee Wengert gave the attendees a quick tutorial on how to submit their anonymous votes, which were broadcasted on the screen in real time. One of the questions asked attendees to choose their favorite three creative placement options. The most popular options chosen were unique lighting, public tables at sitting height and gateway elements.

"This will help us get an understanding from the stakeholders group, the people in this room, the community, what's the important elements we can incorporate into the downtown streets," Broussard said.

After the presentation and the voting, attendees marked favorite and least favorite aspects on boards placed in the back of the room. Marshalltown resident Erin Carpenter was happy with what she saw, even though the designs resulting from the parking options were similar.

"It seems like a lot of thoughtful work is going into the project, which is really inspiring that the city has committed to engaging the people and doing something that the community will get behind, and not just doing what they want," she said. "Marshalltown is a unique place and we deserve unique, creative expression in our community. That's very exciting we're going to get something uniquely Marshalltown."

Mayor Joel Greer was also in attendance, and was happy with the turnout of the crowd.

"It is delightful to have something like this," he said. "To have people who care to come out and see what the options are, and go back to the drawing board and see what is to come."

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.

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