Currents Winter 2019

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WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR DOWNTOWN CEDAR FALLS? Cedar Falls has a thriving 24-hour downtown. A strong partnership between the City of Cedar Falls, Community Main Street, downtown businesses, property owners, and residents makes this possible. This success creates momentum for additional investment in downtown. Several new buildings are under construction that will provide more hotel rooms downtown for visitors, additional space for new businesses, and new housing opportunities for those who want to live right in the heart of the action. As change occurs, the city would like to check in with the community to update and affirm the vision, goals, and objectives that will preserve and support what is best about Downtown Cedar Falls, while responding to market trends to ensure it will be successful into the future. As a first step in the process, the city will host Visioning Workshops in the spring to gather community input on the future of downtown. The goal is to put together a road map for how to support existing downtown development and how to grow and manage change over time. All are welcome and encouraged to participate! Questions we will be trying to answer include:

WINTER 2018 Volume 1 Aquatics 11 Community Main St. 9 Construction Updates 4–5 Events & Calendar 18–19 Hearst Center 14–15 Historical Society 8–9 Library 16–17 Mayor’s Corner 3 Public Meetings 20 Rec Center 12–13

Why do you come downtown? What do you value most about downtown? What are the best aspects of downtown? How should downtown grow over time? What are the challenges? What are your ideas for addressing those challenges? Are there new opportunities we should be thinking about? New housing? Businesses? Amenities? How should the central business district work with close-in neighborhoods and with the Cedar River? Once a clear vision and goals are in place, we can update our policies and zoning practices to help achieve the vision. Zoning tools have evolved in recent years, moving away from separating land uses (housing, retail, offices, industrial) into different areas to a new set of zoning tools that help create downtowns and neighborhoods with a mix of uses where people can live, work, shop, and play. Just walk downtown to see how mixing retail businesses, restaurants, entertainment venues, offices, and residential apartments and condominiums has created a unique sense of place that people are drawn to 24 hours a day. The city is interested in exploring zoning approaches to sustain and build on our successes. We invite you to join this effort! To get involved in the process you can start by signing up for notifications at www.cedarfalls.com/DowntownVisioning, or find the page using the homepage links at www.cedarfalls.com.

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DOWNTOWN PARKING STUDY As part of the Fiscal Year 2019 budget, the City Council approved completing a parking study. In September 2018, staff created a parking study committee and sent out a request for proposals. A consultant was selected to perform a study in the downtown area. Online surveys were completed as part of the study. Stakeholder and public meetings will also be held. The study is expected to be completed in early 2019. At that time the consultant will provide recommendations to the City Council for their consideration, and also to determine whether a similar study needs to be performed in the College Hill area, or if the recommendations for the downtown area could be implemented there as well. If you are interested in more information about the study, watch for updates at www.cedarfalls.com or please feel free to call City Hall at (319) 273-8600.


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