River Bend Neighborhood

McHenry Park Trail Connection Public Meeting

August 26, 2009

WHAT: The City of Des Moines Park and Recreation and Engineering Departments will hold a public meeting regarding a possible new trail connection extending from the Neal Smith Recreational Trail north into McHenry Park. This option is brought about due to the Army Corps of Engineers’ recently-proposed layout of the Birdland levee.

Des Moines residents and recreational trail users, particularly those in the McHenry Park, Highland Park, Oak Park, Birdland Park and Union Park neighborhoods are encouraged to attend to hear options and share their opinions, as well as any concerns, about this possible new trail route and the associated benefits and impacts to the park.

McHenry Park is located at 1012 Oak Park Avenue.

WHEN:    Wednesday, August 26, 2009
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

WHO:   Des Moines Park and Recreation Department
Des Moines Engineering Department

WHERE:   Polk County North Senior Center
Park Fair Mall, Second and Euclid Avenues
Des Moines, Iowa 50309

The July River Bend Neighborhood membership meeting is being moved up one week to Monday, July 6, in order to hold a City Council candidate forum.

The meeting will be at the Salvation Army offices, Sixth and Forest Avenues, 7 pm.

Attending will be our councilman Tom Vlassis and his opponent Halley Griess. Please attend and bring your questions and concerns to discuss with the candidates.

From River Bend neighbor Mike Hildebrand:

“I wanted to give you all a heads up and an opportunity to participate in what I think will prove to be a very positive event for our neighborhood.  The event committee has taken a very successful event from the neighborhoods past (The Cop Feed) and developed it into what we are calling our “River Bend Neighborhood Association Public Official 24-Hour Appreciation Breakfasts & Dinner” on July 10th beginning at noon and going through until noon on July 11th in the Salvation Army parking lot at the corner of 6th Avenue and Forest Avenue.

“We would like to show our appreciation to the different departments that continue to improve the quality of life in our neighborhood through their diligence of enforcing the law and regulations, protecting us and our neighbors, and partnering with us on neighborhood improvements such as rezoning and the 6th Avenue Revitalization Project.”

Invitations have gone out to Mayor Frank Cownie and members of the Des Moines City Council, along with employees from the Des Moines Police Department, the local Fire Station #4, appointed members of the Des Moines Planning and Zoning Board, officials from the city’s Office of Community Development, Office of Economic Development, our neighborhood’s City Inspector, Bob Reynolds, and Polk County Supervisor Angela Connolly.

Event organizers need help with staffing the event and providing some food supplies.  Please contact Mike Hildebrand [ Hildebrand [dot] Mike [at] principal [dot] com ] if you might be available to help out with the event.

Volunteers are needed to set up the event, July 10, between 10 am and noon, as well as for staffing the event in two-hour shifts between noon July 10, and noon July 11. Help is also needed for cleaning up afterward.

Help is also needed to make big batches of picnic-style side dishes: baked beans (total of 20 servings), potato salad (total of 40 servings) and pasta salad (total of 40 servings.

The upcoming River Bend Neighborhood Home Tour is featured in a short video on the Welcome Home Magazine website. Carolyn Jenison, whose home is one of the six on this year’s tour, is interviewed about the history of the area, and shares the details of the tour.

The Welcome Home television show airs at 11 am Sundays on KCWI (channel 23, or channel 9 on Mediacom cable).

Watch the video at the Welcome Home website.

The River Bend Neighborhood Home Tour is this weekend, September 6 and 7, 2008. Hours are Saturday 10am – 4pm, Sunday 11 am – 4 pm. TIckets are $10 for adults and $5 for children ages 5 – 17, and can be purchased at the Wherry II building, 1612 – 6th Avenue (next door to Something Good restaurant). The tour ticket price also includes trolley transportation from the ticket office to all six homes on the tour.

A trolley car heads down the old West Ninth streetcar line, around the Des Moines River’s bend and back up the old Sixth Avenue streetcar line, taking tour-goers to some of the neighborhood’s historic homes during the 12th Annual River Bend Historic Homes Tour, September 6 and 7, 2008.

This year’s house tour theme showcases the work of three prominent local architects: Hallett & Rawson, Liebbe Norse Rasmussen and C.C. Cross and Company.  There will be two residential examples of each of the architects’ work on the tour.

River Bend’s Home Tour offers attendees a unique experience in that the tour provides visitors with two host homes that welcome them to sit down, enjoy refreshments and observe demonstration sessions.  This year’s workshops will feature two different wood restoration methods, calligraphy, and quilting.

This year, attendees will also see the genesis of a partnership among the River Bend Neighborhood Association, the City of Des Moines and the Iowa State Historical Society, as they work in concert to restore the Rachel Ruan House – John Ruan III’s boyhood home and the first location for Ruan Transportation.

Tickets are on sale at the day of the tour at 1602 Sixth or at Dahls’ 3th and Ingersoll Avenue location.  Group discounts are available by calling 515.491.0226.

Ticket Prices:
$10 / Adult for both days
$5 / Children 17 and under
Free for children aged 5 and under

Tour Times are:
Saturday, September 6, 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, September 7, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Browse through these home tour entries, or contact cjenison [at] mchsi [dot] com for more information.

The charming green and yellow shingle style Victorian house at 1530 – 9th Street was built in 1897. The home was part of a 9th Street development of three houses by George E. Hallett, including the “mushroom house” at 1330 – 9th Street.

Hallett himself filled the roles of both the architect and the developer for this house, and even lived in the home for a time.

Both Hallett-designed houses are featured on the 2008 River Bend Neighborhood Home Tour, which will be held September 6 and 7.

River Bend residents and neighborhood board representatives were among the more than one hundred people turned out for Monday’s Des Moines City Council meeting. Dozens packed the City Council chambers to voice their opposition to the proposed development of a $6.1 million homeless shelter in the Cheatom Park neighborhood.

The shelter, which is run by Central Iowa Shelter and Services, is slated to be moved from its current location at 205 – 15th Street. Until recently the shelter was on the fringes of downtown Des Moines. But with the extension of the east-west leg of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard to the south of the shelter, and proposed $160 million Riverpoint West housing and commercial development nearby, city leaders have proposed moving the shelter out of downtown.
An article by reporter Jason Clayworth in the Tuesday, September 26 Des Moines Register further explained:

Don Curry, vice president of the Cheatom Park neighborhood association, said residents feared that drug addicts, alcoholics and sex offenders would live at the shelter or frequent the area. He noted that a city park is a five-minute walk from the site, and that homes are as close as 200 feet.
Carolyn Jenison, president of the River Bend neighborhood association, held up a map showing more than two dozen other service agencies in the area, such as group homes or shelters for recovering addicts. “I’m asking we just share the load” and locate the proposed shelter elsewhere, she said.
The proposal was unveiled in June by a committee of metro leaders, including Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, Des Moines City Councilman Chris Coleman and West Des Moines Mayor Gene Meyer.
The plan calls for replacing a homeless shelter at 205 15th St. with an expanded, updated facility south of Interstate Highway 235 and east of Keosauqua Way. The Iowa Department of Transportation owns the now-vacant 2.4-acre site.
The current shelter, run by Central Iowa Shelter and Services, has space for about 120 people. The proposed facility, which would be run by the same group, would hold about 175 and offer expanded social programs.
City officials have said the shelter should not be expanded at its current site, which is in an area that could one day include a $165 million housing-and-commercial project known as Riverpoint West.
Neighborhood residents complained Monday that they were not part of the committee to evaluate sites, noting that one criterion the team used was proximity to homes.
Derek Bastian, pastor at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, said that with its choice of site for the new facility, the metro leaders’ committee was telling people who live near his church that “we’re invisible.”
Jean Brown, director of the shelter, was visibly shaken by the intense opposition to the plan. “What I’ve heard today” concerning the fears expressed by residents “is inaccurate, to say the least,” she said.
More than 15 people spoke to the council. In the end, the council directed the site committee to meet with neighborhood leaders within 30 days. Future public meetings will be held before a final decision is made, the council said.