Uncategorized – Douglas Avenue Coalition

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Douglas Ave to close for resurfacing

jgeerdes — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 11:18:27 +0000

UPDATE: The dates of the road closure were corrected.

The next phase of the Douglas Avenue corridor’s revitalization begins this weekend as crews will close the road for resurfacing beginning Friday, July 16 at 10 pm. Crews will work through the weekend to complete the project and re-open the road Monday, July 19, at 5 am. When the resurfacing is completed, Douglas Ave. will be repainted using an experimental three-lanes configuration with one lane traveling in each direction and a center turn lane. For more information, see the article in the Des Moines Register: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/des-moines/2021/07/07/des-moines-douglas-avenue-closing-repaving-lane-reduction-highway-6-construction-traffic-merle-hay/7890357002/

Merle Hay Mall to add 3,500-seat arena, 150-room hotel

jgeerdes — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 13:32:48 +0000

Merle Hay Mall officials have announced a new purpose for the old Younkers store. The space has been vacant since Younkers closed in 2018, but mall officials are hoping to build upon the area’s reputation as an entertainment destination by renovating the space into a 3,500-seat multipurpose arena and 150-room hotel.

Among the first purposes of the arena will be to host the Des Moines Buccaneers hockey team. The Buccaneers have been playing in Wells Fargo Arena since its facility was heavily damaged by the August 10 derecho.

Merle Hay Mall is located at the west end of Des Moines’ Douglas Avenue corridor. Despite losing two anchor stores within months in 2018, Merle Hay Investments, which owns the mall, has been actively working to improve the facility and draw new investments and businesses.

Douglas Avenue corridor plan recognized

jgeerdes — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 18:23:22 +0000

The Iowa Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects announced today that the Douglas Avenue corridor plan has received the organization’s Merit Award. The plan, which was drafted by RDG Planning & Design, was recognized in the category of Planning and Analysis for its excellent community engagement and the improvements that it will bring to the community. The award was announced at the Iowa Chapter’s fall awards ceremony.

“This project shows well thought-out and planned community engagement. If the corridor gets built as proposed, it will be a wonderful improvement,” the ASLA observed in its award presentation.

DAC played a vital part of the planning process. The coalition brought together businesses, neighbors, city, county, and state officials, providing the impetus for the planning process and facilitating the community engagement which has been so crucial to the plan’s success to date.

DAC extends warm congratulations to the team at RDG Planning & Design, the city of Des Moines’ Community Development Department, and everyone else who has contributed to the corridor plan, and we look forward to working together to realize the planned improvements.

Details emerge for implementing corridor plan

jgeerdes — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 23:18:51 +0000

The Iowa Department of Transportation and city of Des Moines have revealed important details for implementing the first steps of the Douglas Avenue corridor plan that was approved in February 2020. When the plan was approved, the hope was to have the first steps implemented during 2020. However, because COVID-19 dramatically affected traffic patterns throughout the metro area, it was decided to postpone in order to obtain more accurate data throughout the first phase of the plan. In the coming months, though, city planners insist the corridor plan will once again move at full speed ahead.

In the first phase of the Douglas Avenue corridor plan, the roadway between Merle Hay Rd and Lower Beaver Rd will be reduced to one lane in each direction and a center turn lane.

Starting in spring 2021, the city will be studying traffic speed and patterns. Then, during the summer, the Iowa Department of Transportation will resurface the corridor from Merle Hay Road to the Des Moines River.

Once the resurfacing work is complete, the city of Des Moines will restripe the entire corridor. The roadway between Merle Hay Road and Lower Beaver Road will be restriped with one lane in each direction and a center turn lane. Between Lower Beaver Road and the Des Moines River, the roadway will be restriped with five lanes, but the lanes will be narrowed slightly. For this pilot project, drivers will notice extra pavement on either side of the road resembling a shoulder or bike lane so that, if the pilot project is not successful, the striping may returned to the original configuration.

In Fall 2022, the city will once again collect data to assess the impact of the new roadway configuration on traffic speed and flow. If the project is deemed a success, the city has allocated $8 million in FY2024 and FY2025 to move curbs and add sidewalks.

Final Douglas Avenue plan goes before city council

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:50:50 +0000

We have great news to share! Last week the Plan & Zoning Commission unanimously approved the Douglas Avenue Corridor Plan. The plan is now scheduled for City Council on Monday, Feb 24th at 4:30 at City Hall (402 Robert D. Ray Drive).

You can view the final Douglas Avenue corridor plan here.

We want to share a big thank you to both RDG and HDR for their hard work in compiling the document and everything else that got us to this exciting point!

Final Douglas Avenue plan goes before the city

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 02:42:45 +0000

We have great news to share that the finalized Douglas Avenue corridor plan is ready to go before the City of Des Moines!

You can view the final Douglas Avenue corridor plan here.

RDG & HDR will be presenting our plan to the Plan & Zoning Commission this Thursday, Feb 6th, 2020 at 5:30pm during the early session. Afterwards, the commission will vote to “amend Plan DSM Creating Our Tomorrow to incorporate the Douglas Avenue Corridor Plan as an element.” This is a vote to approve the plan and forward a recommendation to the Des Moines City Council (which we hope will be on the next city council agenda on February 24th, 2020).

We want to share a big thank you to both RDG and HDR for their hard work in compiling the document and everything else that got us to this exciting point!

2019 Douglas Avenue Open House Displays

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 03:48:03 +0000

I would like to share a great big THANK YOU to everyone who visited our open house last month! We had an incredible turnout, enjoyed lots of great conversations, and received wonderful feedback from our community. Thank you for sharing in our excitement and vision for Douglas Avenue!

For those of you who could not attend, we have included an image below of every board that was on display at the open house. If it’s more convenient for you, a PDF of all these images are available to download here (it’s 34MB in size). Click on an image below to see it in greater detail.

UPDATED 11/25/2019: Added a section below with photos of the displays with the voting dots on them.

Photos of Displays with the Voting Dots

Photos from the Event

Open House October 29th!

Sat, 21 Sep 2019 22:27:22 +0000

The Douglas Avenue Coalition (DAC) will host an open house on Tuesday, October 29, to share
information about proposed improvements to the Douglas Avenue Corridor between Merle Hay
Road and the Des Moines River. The improvements will facilitate the revitalization of the commercial nodes along Douglas Avenue and are the culmination of more than two years’
collaboration between DAC, the city of Des Moines, Polk County, the state of Iowa, and consulting firm RDG, along with extensive input from the community.

The open house will be held on October 29, 2019 from 4 pm until 7 pm, at Polk County River Place (2309 Euclid Avenue, Des Moines). The public is invited to view the proposals during this time, and officials will be on hand to answer questions.

The Douglas Avenue Coalition includes neighbors, businesses, and non-profits working
together to build a vibrant Douglas Avenue Corridor. It is accomplishing this mission by
advocating for aesthetic and infrastructure improvements, and by pursuing creative incentives to encourage businesses to locate and expand along Douglas Avenue.

Please help us spread the word!

April Update – Next Open House to be Announced

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 02:18:21 +0000

We had originally planned to have the next public open house in April to unveil the Douglas Avenue Corridor plan. That timeline has been delayed for a couple reasons. For one, we are awaiting additional traffic modeling to help with the decisions being made along Douglas Avenue. And second, discussions with the Iowa DOT about Douglas Avenue, since it is a state highway, and what changes can and can’t be made along this highway are still underway. Meanwhile, the City and our design firm, RDG, continue to have ongoing conversations with property owners to help inform the plan. We are eager for these final pieces to fall into place and, once they do, we will get the public open house on the calendar. We look forward to seeing you all then!

So please stay tuned!

Meanwhile, to be sure you see the open house announcement, join our mailing list:

Join Our Mailing List

If you would like to help fund our non-profit organization dedicated to revitalizing the Douglas Avenue Corridor, you can donate online!