River Bend Neighborhood

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.