Iowa State misses out on a lot of conferences and concerts to Des Moines because of the lack of amenities around the ISC. Adding this element will help bring back some of those conferences we routinely miss out on.
CyTown Announcement - Monday 9/19 (Links in OP)
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It'd be a real shame if this project happened to make someone realize that other areas of town need to rapidly improve to keep business.
Meaning it's not an actual domain, at least yet, just a portion of cyclones.com, correct?
This is probably the thing that is most missing to us fans here. We don't see the success/failure rate of loosing out on these conferences and what kind of revenue they may bring to the university.
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Eh, I've parked in C for years. With tent row + having to enter B and A from the West those lots already are separated.
? The profitability of the lower investment option will be higher...that's my point.
Also, nice strawman, clearly anyone bringing up alternative investments/options is anti revitalizing Ames.
I didn't realize it was a problem until I started talking to people with Conference Planning & Management at ISU and Discover Ames. A lot of conferences and concerts decide to go to Des Moines after Des Moines built Wells Fargo and put an effort into attracting businesses close to it. Iowa State AND Ames can benefit from gaining some of these back.
Why do Ames people seem to shun any decent sort of development ever?
People keep pointing to Sommerset as a failure and it probably isn’t great but it always seems busy when I go there. It also was built in an awful location that is hard to get to at least for students.
I really don’t get what they actually expect for developments. If you want Ames to just shrivel up and die fine but you have to be looking to build for the future and that is what this does. It hopefully provides more revenue and makes games more of a destination instead of just a game.
I am thinking they would have employee parking and that's it. I can't see someone wanting to deal with football gameday traffic to drive to a retail shop there, shop for 30 minutes, then drive out again.
The worry about what will happen to other businesses and what will happen in the summer months is weird too. Businesses open and close all the time for all sorts of different reasons. Infrastructure and development helps to attract more people, not just to serve the existing population.
Yeah, I wonder if there would be less skeptics towards this project if that fact was more well known, or at least a driver in the marketing of this project.
I understand what you’re saying, but if we’re going to have a low investment type of set up of food trucks/ a few shops geared towards some ISU fans/ames residents, we might as well not waste the premium tailgate lots. This project in theory will enhance not only game days, but eventually bring conferences, concerts, business that’s going to DSM and bringing millions to court ave/east village every year. Big picture, big revenue.
Too many times, people worry that they will lose what they already have for businesses. That idea generally gets self-prophesying, in that by being scared and just holding on is basically having a slow death that the area can never pull out of. You need to go forward if the best information you have says what are are looking at can be successful. Some will succeed, some won't.
With infrastructure for phase 1 being completed next year I wonder when we hear about some tenants. From a previous podcast Pollard was on it sounded like tentative agreements may be in place with at least a couple anchors (guessing the brewpub and medical building. Very interested to hear who those will be.
You can't think of, or haven't heard, any alternatives between no investment and CyTown as laid out?
You think CyTown design should be exactly as planned pre pandemic even though interest rates and business occupancy rates have changed dramatically?
Again, part of project is great. Need hotel for recruiters badly.
Are you suggesting that these are permanent and not fluid?
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Yeah, Somerset shouldn't be used as evidence for anything. They put it in the most hard to get to part of town you can find. There's little reason to go up there unless you live there, so you don't get much "well, I was in the neighborhood" business.
University avenue, is a completely different beast. It's a commuter road for a ton of people. Direct access to the highway with multiple hotels at that interchange. Industrial park is close. It's as close to a central location as you can find in Ames.
That's no guarantee that it will succeed, but it's set up much better for success than a place like Somerset.
I had no idea Somerset existed until my son had an apartment up there about a year ago. We live north, so it's not totally out of our way to go home from games, but it's not a destination place.
