progress edition How we got here: A look back at 2009
H1 SUNDAY JANUARY 31, 2010
WATERLOO www.wcfcourier.com CEDAR FALLS
inside this section:
TAKING SHAPE Waterloo riverfront projects move forward page H2
SUMMER FUN Cedar Valley offers entertainment options page H3
inside PRESENT: STANDING AT A CROSSROADS John Deere continues to invest in the economy, people of the Cedar Valley page I1
GOOD BUSINESS C.F.’s new Target store anchors retail plaza
FUTURE: WHERE WE’RE HEADED Price Lab school implements state-issued research and development project page J1
page H4
Jim Walsh: Making downtown fly By PAT KINNEY pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com
WATERLOO — Some might have suggested, years ago, that downtown Waterloo would prosper again when pigs fly. Appropriately, Jim Walsh has sculptures of flying pigs in his downtown law office. He also has converted several dilapidated downtown properties into destination locations for a growing, regenerated entertainment district along East Fourth Street. It hasn’t been easy. It hasn’t happened exactly as planned or as rapidly as he hoped. But it has happened. From the buildings housing Cu restaurant, to Jameson’s Public House, to the historic Fowler Building that is home to Screaming Eagle bar and grill, to a reconditioned former Walker Shoes building and a work in progress in the former Newton’s Jewelers location, and his involvement with Iowa Irish Fest, Walsh has put some very big oars in the waters of a current many said was flowing against the future of downtown Waterloo. Walsh has been Waterloo city attorney 19 years. He’s been an executive with Van G. Miller and his home medical supply empire for about 30 years He didn’t have to invest in downtown Waterloo, and he’ll be the first to tell you he didn’t do it for totally altruistic or charitable reasons. But Walsh, who grew up in Chicago, and has been in Waterloo since the mid-’70s, lets negativity roll off his big shoulders like the Windy City native he is and moves in one direction — straight ahead. He and his companies are involved in some 25 downtown properties — his fourth career, he says, after the law, the home medical supply business and city government. To longtime downtown developers like Donna Nelson, who’ve been fighting the good fight since the late 1960s, Walsh’s entry into downtown revitalization has provided some long overdue and much appreciated muscle to downtown revitalization efforts. “He’s done great things down-
RICK TIBBOTT / Courier Staff Photographer
Waterloo city attorney, VGM Group executive and downtown developer Jim Walsh is shown here in his downtown Waterloo law office. town. We’re delighted,” Nelson, of Nelson Properties, said of Walsh. “There’s been a lot of people that have really helped, and Jim is one of those. You need people like the Hollens (Mike and Joni, operators of Cu) and the new mayor (Buck Clark, former Jameson’s proprietor) in addition to what we’ve been doing with the Black’s Building. And with Jim coming through, it’s great.” “It’s not entirely charitable,” Walsh said of his efforts.”I mean, I don’t do this just to help out in an area I thought needed help. But at the same time, it did need help. And it is what I consider my hometown. And I want to help it. “What it really needs is concentration of force,” Walsh said. “You’re familiar with that as a military concept; it’s also true as an economic concept. If you take a limited amount of dollars and investment effort and spread it all
over, it doesn’t make any difference. But if you concentrate that and put it in one neighborhood — in this case I started out with just half a neighborhood, the east side of Waterloo — and if you concentrate it, you can make a difference. “Everybody sees that now. These three or four blocks between the (Cedar) river and the (Lincoln) park have gotten appreciably, noticeably and visually better,” Walsh said. “It’s a nicer neighborhood now than it was before. “I think it’s a long way from being economically solid yet,” he added. “We still need to mix in a few other businesses and give it a little time to mature.” He’d like to bring back a pharmacy, a men’s clothing store and some of the smaller retailers that used to be common downtown. Walsh started turning his attentions to downtown redevelopment in 2001-02. “I would have thought
when I started, in five years I would have done everything. Well , it’s now close to 10 and I’m still just right in the middle of it,” he said. “It takes a long time to do the planning that’s necessary and raise funding.” The key now is to deepen the concentration of businesses and residences to sustain business and foot traffic downtown through the week and the day, and not just for weekend celebrations such as “Friday’loo” concerts. “People come down and see a big crowd down here and say ‘that’s a pretty good deal.’ Try coming down on a week night,” he said. “Without a concentration of residences and other complementary businesses down here it’s hard for a single business to keep enough traffic. Particularly week nights.” For example, he’s also trying to generate traffic earlier in the day with an establishment planned
for the Newton’s building: Newton’s Paradise Cafe. “It’s going to be mainly a breakfast place,” patterned after a similar establishment in Louisville, Ky. “We’ll give it a shot,” he said. “I’m looking for a friendly neighborhood place,” with an upscale menu. “That corner (East Fourth and Sycamore streets) needs some activity,” he said, located at the same intersection as the Black’s Building, First National Building and Regions Bank park. He wants downtown Waterloo to develop the concentration of businesses Cedar Falls has, to the point where the downtown itself becomes the destination and visitors come to “wander around” among the various shops and attractions. “That’s one of my goals for this neighborhood,” he said. “We don’t have quite the density of businesses here and variety for that yet. But we’re getting there.”