River Bend Neighborhood

Neighbors and business owners from the River Bend Neighborhood met earlier this week to brainstorm ideas for the revitalization of the Sixth Avenue corridor.  Sixth Avenue is a main thoroughfare into downtown Des Moines.  It cuts right through the middle of the River Bend Neighborhood, and in recent decades has fallen on hard times. The brainstorming session sought ideas for reversing that trend, and for revitalizing and beautifying this commercial corridor.

One of the brainstorm meeting’s attendees was Neighborhood Finance Corporation (NFC) employee Steve Wilke-Shapiro. Wilke-Shapiro is Real Estate Development Manager for the agency. He recapped the discussion at the Salvation Army offices in this entry on his blog:

“Sixth Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare forming the spine of the River Bend neighborhood. It runs more or less from downtown at the south to Interstate 80 (where it turns into NW 6th Drive). Along the way it strings together a variety of destinations including Mercy Medical Center and North High School as well as crossing I-235, University, and Euclid.

“It is also, for the most part, underutilized and dreary, particularly for the pedestrian. Until now.

“Aaron Todd and Brian Douglas of the River Bend Neighborhood have recognized that the time is ripe for dealing with 6th Ave. The two are project co-leaders of a planning effort to remake 6th Avenue as a neighborhood asset. Toward that end they convened a visioning session of sorts that brought together neighborhood residents, business, and non-profit representatives to start the visioning process for a revitalized 6th Avenue.

“The visioning session commenced with small groups brainstorming “vision” statements and putting into words the elements of a successful streetscape revitalization. After sharing the results with the full group, we proceeded into a SWOC (Strengths - Opportunities - Weaknesses - Challenges) analysis. The next group exercise was a review of the suggested streetscape improvement elements identified by previous plans, and submitted to the city planning staff. The meeting concluded with a discussion of what type of neighborhood festival might work to showcase the neighborhood.

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