Benson- An early 20th century streetcar suburb annexed into Omaha in the 1910s

The neighborhood is named after Erastus Benson a land speculator, investor and philanthropist who was an early investor in marketing Thomas Edison’s inventions. In the mid-to-late 1910s, Omaha embarked on a course of annexing its suburban communities to its north and west. In a shrewd move, Benson anticipating annexation, decided to build as many civic improvements as they could knowing that after annexation the City would be responsible for assuming these debts.

Benson’s best urban attribute is its in tact 4-block historic commercial district along Maple Street, now a designated Historic District. This brings a great array of walkable cultural amenities (esp. restaurants & bars) and plenty of locally owned retail. Benson also has solid public transit access, convenient access to Dwtn, several walkable schools, good housing diversity, lots of parks, decent tree canopy, and a high level of safety.

While there is a concentration of denser housing from the 1910s-1920s surrounding Maple street, much of Benson is medium density bland mid-century housing. Benson also has some awful stroad stretches along Radial Highway, 72nd Street, and the Western half of Maple Street. For Benson to be considered a top notch urban district it needs more density, urban in-fill along its stroads, more racial diversity, and much better bike network.

Click here to view my Benson album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

• Convenient access to dwtn being only a 10 min drive and 25 min bus ride.
• Solid public transit access.
• Good street connectivity that is well connect and generally has small blocks albeit there are some larger blocks on the southern edge of the neighborhood.
• Excellent economic diversity and solid age diversity
• Generally good sidewalks and curb cuts but a 1/3 of intersections without ADA curbs and some streets missing sidewalks in the Southwestern corner of the district.
• Pretty good historic commercial architecture along Maple St.
• While often poorly rated Benson has a lot of walkable schools for all ages and has several Catholic and private schools including a larger Jesuit High School.
• Some 1 bed rentals that lease anywhere in the 1ks. More 2-bed options leasing anywhere from $800-2K. Good amount of 3-beds that lease close to 2K. A couple large affordable housing towers here.
• Good for sale diversity including a decent # of 1-bed detach SF homes selling anywhere from 50K-150K. 2-beds sell btwn 75K-350K. 3 & 4 beds sell btwn 90K-550K with the most expensive housing concentrated in the Country Club District.
• Overall a very safe area.
• Good array of small and medium sized parks well dispersed throughout the district. Also a public swimming pool several ballfields and ball grounds and the large Benson Park just north of the neighborhood which includes a lake and extensive golf course.
• Good tree canopy.
• Retail and cultural amenities are overwhelming concentrated along Maple St especially the 4 block core between Radial & Military. Solid cultural amenities including plenty of food & beverage businesses, a couple breweries, lots of night clubs, a couple live music venues, plenty of galleries, and a performing arts center in a historic theater.
• Good retail amenities including several groceries, a pharmacy, lots of boutiques, gift shops, and unique locally owned stores in the core of Maple, a comic store, a couple toy stores, several banks, plenty of dessert joints & gyms, some home good & furniture stores, a local post office and library, plenty of churches and a handful of medical office. A couple supermarkets and big box stores located on edges.”

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* So so density for an urban area.  
* Limited bike lanes and really no direct bike connection to Dwtn.  A handful of dedicated bike stations in the neighborhood.
* Limited racial diversity as this is at least an 80% White district.
* About half of the housing stock is pretty bland mid-century post war housing or ranches. Best historic residential is in the County Club district. Also some good 20s and 30s modest homes concentrated around Maple Street the commercial district.
* Outside the core 4 blocks of Maple, the street becomes a mixture of residential, mixed use, and stroad. Streetscaping generally isn’t great outside of the Core of Maple. Radial Highway and 72nd are both poor quality stroads but at least have disinvested sidewalks.
* And a handful of urban infill apartments. Some autocentric infill as well on the stroads mentioned above.