Downtown Council Bluffs, IA

It is very difficult to carve out a urban evaluation area for Council Bluffs. I focused in on the historic dwtn and did my best to include more or less connected urban areas to the Dwtn. I used the train tracks as the western border, 9th & 5th Ave as the southern, Avenue G as the northern and then had to continue the norther and southern borders eastwards to connect to where Lincoln intersections with Broadway to capture the urban main street continuing eastward along Broadway and its connecting urban residential streets.

At a population of 62K this is Iowa’s 10th largest city. Until about 1853 Council Bluffs was known as Kanesville, the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail. Council Bluffs (rather than Omaha) was designated by President Abraham Lincoln as the official starting point of the transcontinental railroad, which was completed in 1869. By the 1930s, Council Bluffs had grown into the country’s fifth largest rail center. The railroads helped the City become a center for grain storage. By the late 20th century the city and region were suffering economic stagnation as it struggled to develop a new economy. The City’s population dipped to 54K in 1990 but has since rebounded most of this likely due to sprawl.

Dwtn Council Bluffs is a decent mixed-use area with a great central  plaza, two main biz districts (Main & Broadway), solid parks, good retail and cultural amenities, a good stretches of historic commercial and stately homes (along Main street), and lots of housing options and relatively affordable. As Council Bluffs was the center of a pretty large historic City there is an interesting mix of more Dwtn and neighborhood amenities. But Dwtn Council Bluffs has plenty of blight and underutilized autocentric stretches. For Dwtn Council Bluffs to become a top tier urban district it needs to continue to build quality urban infill and work towards creating a truly walkable core for a largely autocentric Council Bluffs City.

Click here to view of my Dwtn Council Bluffs Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Sidewalks and ADA infrastructure is generally good but about 1/3 of all intersections are without curb cuts and some very narrow sidewalks in parts.
* Good dedicated bike connection to Dwtn Omaha via a seperated train connecting pretty well to a pedestrian Bridge over the Missouri River. A couple dedicated bike stations as well. Bike connection is 40 mins which is similar to the bus distance. Driving is an easy 15 mins.
* Good supply of rentals mixing very affordable and moderately priced stuff. Lots of dedicated rental in the Dwtn area.
* For sale housing is a mix of affordable and moderately priced housing but decent variation. Some 1-bed homes that sell btwn 40K-85K. 2-bed homes sell btwn 50K-225K. 3 & 4 bed product sells btwn 75K-410K.
* Good park amenities including an excellent historic square park (Bayliss Park), two YMCA’s, expansive Fairmount Park with a view, and a couple other small parks.
* Excellent tree canopy along the hillsides, less so on the more urban flat areas.
* Cultural amenities include a good # of food & beverage amenities, a couple night clubs, a couple live music venues & art galleries., the Hoffman Arts Center, and several museums.
* Decent retail amenities including a hardware store, a supermarket, several drug stores, lots of banks, only a couple boutiques/gift stores, a couple antique stores, a Dwtn public library, a record store, a florist, several salons, a couple dessert joints, and plenty of gyms, major hospital nearby and plenty of medical offices, and plenty of churches.
* Mix of quality urban form  & massing and pretty terrible autocentric stretches across all the biz districts (Broadway, Main, and the more Dwtn feeling blocks surrounding Bayliss Park). Similar dynamic with urban in-fill.
* Great historic commercial building surrounding Bayliss Park and along stretches of Main and Broadway. Great historic residential around Bayliss Park and up the hill from Main Street.
* Good mix of uses throughout most of Dwtn Council Bluffs.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

• Public transit is pretty sub par for an urban area.
• Pretty low density for an urban district.
• Good street connectivity in the core of Dwtn but it falls off eastward along Broadway Ave.
• Pretty high poverty rate in Council Bluffs.
• Lots of unadorned historic worker housing in the Dwtn area.
• Pedestrian activity pretty underwhelming for a Dwtn area.”