Uptown options presented to council

This is the second in a two-part series about plans and updates to the Community Neighborhood Revitalization Grant.

Though council approval has been delayed, Uptown design decisions were still made at Tuesday’s Creston City Council meeting.

With the Iowa Economic Development Authority expecting final designs soon for the $1.75 million Community Neighborhood Revitalization Grant they presented to Creston in 2024, various project leads showed the council designs for the handful of projects planned.

The cost for the projects under the grant currently exceed what funding is available, so the council had to decide where cuts are to be made.

Further discussion regarding the project and approval of designs is expected at the next city council meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 17 in the Restored Depot. All projects must be complete by July 2028.

Uptown plaza and pocket park

One of the most noticeable projects will be a plaza on the south side of Adams Street, west of Elm Street.

“Our [idea] for that, for the last seven, eight years was that that would be kind of the welcome center to the uptown district, provide wayfinding, you know, a map of the uptown QR code, sort of gathering space, additional shade for parade viewing, that sort of thing,” UCDA Director Mindy Stalker said.

The original design for the plaza also included playground equipment. However, community members did not like the idea of children playing that close to the train tracks.

“People didn’t want playground equipment that close to the trains,” Stalker said. “We removed components and said, ‘Well, the city currently owns a grassy area on Maple Street. Perhaps pieces of that could go to that area,’ which led us to the pocket park concept.”

The park would be located at 120 N. Maple St. and would have a small bit of play equipment and seating, while also being fenced in for safety. Between CNRG funds, money from the city and other grants, the project would cost about $400,000. However, organizers believe the park would be the easiest of all the projects to find other grants for.

“If it’s $400,000 and if there’s funding that can come from somewhere else and maybe we can get maybe a little bit of volunteering, different groups in the community or something, yeah, I would have no problem cutting that out,” council member Martin Graham said.

The council generally agreed the pocket park could be taken off the CNRG project list, with hopes to pursue it in the future. However, the original Uptown plaza still needed discussing.

“IEDA is very big on the plaza,” Stalker said. “Even when they came, after we got the grant, even when they came and walked, they said, ‘You have to do something with this. This is an eyesore.’”

Updated designs for the plaza include redoing the parking lot, adding grassy space with trees, seating and a welcome space, including a Creston sign. Organizers are also hoping to move the Caboose, currently sitting on BNSF-owned land, to the plaza. However, it is not yet known if the Caboose could survive the move. The council agreed that plaza designs could be minimal, moving some of these funds to other projects.

Adams linear park

One corner of Adams Street isn’t all that’s getting an update with the CNRG. The plan is to do a linear park on the north side of Adams Street from Division Street to Pine Street.

A linear park is a long, narrow outdoor area designed for recreation and transportation that often follows a road. Less of a park and more of an enhanced walkway, the proposed linear park will update more than just the walking path on Adams Street.

Austin Smith of Garden & Associates said the lanes of traffic on Adams Street are abnormally wide, something that often encourages drivers to go faster than they should.

“I think the reduction in width to a more standard street size is going to keep people from going as fast,” Smith said. “The Uptown lanes are like 16-feet wide right now.”

According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, lanes should be 10-feet wide on slower, urban roads, up to 11-feet wide if trucks are common. Meanwhile, highways are recommended to have lanes that are 12-feet wide.

The plan is to narrow the lanes while keeping three lanes of traffic. With the space taken from the road, the sidewalk will be extended. Diagonal parking on the road will remain. Bump outs on the end of each block will work to both protect the parked cars and provide more of a walking path before pedestrians cross the road.

In intervals along each block, there will be a handful of planters with seating. The planters will likely contain a tree and ornamental grass, with the edge of the planter acting as seating.

Elm linear park

While Adams Street is the showstopper, North Elm Street will be getting plenty of its own love. This road will be getting a linear park of its own, but instead of narrowing the road, it will be widened. The hope is to have a seamless transition from the soon-to-be updated rail intersection down North Elm Street.

“I went with Elm as trying to tie together everything that we’re going to do. So we’re going to do the rail intersection on Elm, but the Elm Street that I have shown here is more of an 8-foot wide sidewalk,” Smith said. “Right now it’s 12. That would widen out the parking and the drive lanes. So you’d have 12-foot wide drive lanes, 10-foot wide parking, 8-foot sidewalks. You’re essentially widening out the existing roadway by modifying the sidewalks.”

Along with the road and sidewalk updates, the Elm Street linear park would receive the same planters as Adams Street.

Lighting

Though not all of Uptown will be getting updated roads and sidewalks, the future is bright with more than $400,000 in new streetlights planned. Though only $200,000 CNRG funds will be going to lighting, the city received another grant from IEDA just for lighting, discovered by Southern Iowa Council of Governments Senior Planner Jeremy Rounds.

“Basically we’re doing $200,000 worth more lights than we originally planned to do,” Rounds said. “Before it was just a few of the lights out here, at least now we’re able to do most of this corridor. So at least the lights will have two or three different types of lights on the street.”

Areas that will be getting new lighting include the parking lots around the Restored Depot, Adams Street from North Oak to North Pine streets, Montgomery from North Elm to North Pine streets and along the 100 blocks of North Elm and North Maple.

Residential improvements

Extending outside of the commercial Uptown district, improvements will be made to a handful of sidewalks and homes as well.

Originally, close to $400,000 in sidewalk repairs were in the design. However, due to the necessity of retaining walls, a section near North Walnut, Mills and North Birch streets was agreed to be cut from the project. Repairing this small portion would have been “high expense, low impact,” Stalker said.

However, a number of other residential sidewalks remain in the plan, mostly in the 300 block from North Division Street to North Elm Street.

Three homes in the 300 block of Uptown have also been approved for rehabilitation, with one more position up for grabs. However, to be eligible for the rehab program, homes and owners or renters must follow various qualifications.

Buildings eligible for the rehab project span from Division Street to Birch Street and from the railroad to Howard Street. Homes must be inside this box on the map; buildings on the east side of Birch Street, west side of Division Street and north side of Howard Street are not included.

Other qualifying criteria include having or being able to obtain insurance, being current with mortgage, taxes and utilities and being at or below the income guidelines, which can be found on the city’s website.

The original CNRG application planned for nine homes to be rehabilitated. However, a lack of qualified applicants brought that number down to three, with the possibility of a fourth.

“We’re able to grant approximately $32,000 that we can invest on a property,” Rounds said. “It could actually be a little bit more than that because of match money, but that’s going to be pretty much average.”

There is no match required for owner-occupied homes. However, landlords must match 20% for renter-occupied homes. While the landlord would be providing insurance, tax and other similar information, the income guidelines would be based on the renter.

Exterior improvements the grant can be utilized for include work on roofs, siding, windows, doors and foundation work. Before any of this can be done, a lead inspection must take place. Any issues with lead must be addressed before other improvements are made.

If interested parties are unsure if they qualify, they can take the pre-screening questionnaire.

Questions on eligibility or other information can be found by contacting Rounds at (641) 782-4891 or rounds@sicog.com or Nicole Rhodes from the Southwest Iowa Housing Planning Council at (866) 279-4720, ext. 240 or nicole.rhodes@swipco.org.

Applications can be found online at www.swipco.org/housing-swihtf/creston-cnrg-housing-repair-program/.