Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light: the Coalition Against the Shadow (Blog)

Dylan Thomas got it right. We should rage, rage against the dying of the light at Gilbert and College Streets. No wealthy entrepreneur should continue to cast shadows on the rest of Iowa City because the Iowa City Council is in his pocket.

Marc Moen may be a well intentioned Iowa City entrepreneur, but not when his vision of Iowa City overshadows and conflicts with the older, more beautiful, and historic Iowa City that preserves the notion of home-grown businesses like New Pioneer Coop, which employs nearly 100 Iowa Citians.

The Moen building at the corner of Gilbert and College Streets should not be so disproportionately tall that it casts a shadow on an old and very beautiful church with stained glass windows across the street. There is no modern architecture that can begin to compete with older, more artistic buildings.

The Moen building is energy-inefficient and only superficially green with potted plants and glass. The building has no heart and no respect for its more artful and historic surroundings. It would stick out like a sore thumb.

Seven of eight proposed buildings for the site included New Pioneer Coop and one or two also included the Bike Library, where patrons concerned with global warming and their carbon footprint like to shop. Isn't New Pioneer Coop and the Bike Library representative of what Iowa City is all about? Isn't that the vision that Iowa City, which claims to be progressive, should strive to preserve?

We don't want to be Coralville, where money speaks loudest, the traffic is terrible, and shopping malls with chain stores make Coralville look like everytown in America. We want to be Iowa City, where bicyclists and pedestrians can walk and bike to local stores and buy safe, environmentally friendly products.

New Pioneer managers and employees are furious. Mayor Hayek told me that New Pi "shouldn't feel slighted," but believe me, they do. They want to leave town if they can. I asked an assistant manager whether they could demolish the two or three houses they own on Iowa Avenue and build a store next to the current Iowa City store. He said that all the Iowa City property that New Pi owns is in a flood plain.

I could see New Pi building upwards like the University of Iowa boat house, with an open, concrete parking lot on the bottom floor so that if the Iowa River at its door, no damage would occur on its upper floors. I don't know if New Pi has considered how to build for flood plains, but I wish they'd at least look at the UI's Boat Ramp on the banks of the Iowa River. Ralston Creek is hardly the Iowa River.

I have to confess that it hadn't occurred to me that the Iowa City Council would choose the only project of eight that didn't include New Pioneer Coop or the Bike Library. The night the council voted to cast yet another Moen-inspired shadow on Iowa City was a shock. And God help us, we're actually paying Mr. Moen to do it.

When did we stop being Iowa City, a progressive community of socially responsible interests, and start to become one man's grandiose dream of modernity? One of Moen's buildings with protruding balconies already casts a shadow on the Ped Mall downtown.

Modernity to me means environmentally responsible building, and the proposed Moen building is only 35-37% energy efficient. And Moen is requesting $14.3 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to build it?

The only hope of countering the collusion of business interests serving on the Iowa City Council is to file a request to change the site from P1 (public) to CB-5 zoning, which only allows buildings up to 75 feet. To get his 20-story building built, Moen needs CB-10 business zoning. A lot of us are determined to keep him from getting his CB-10 zoning.

Zoning is where it's at right now for the Coalition Against the Shadow to be successful. Join in the fight. At the coalition meeting I attended, there was standing room only. There's plenty of opposition to the Moen building and sentiment in favor of including the New Pioneer Coop and the Bike Library. Both businesses more properly reflect Iowa City's unique business landscape and sense of itself as a progressive community.

We need to get the moneyed interests off the Iowa City Council: Terry Dickens, who owns Herteen & Stockers; Connie Champion, who owns Catherine's; Matt Hayek, a partner in the Hayek Law Firm; and Michelle Payne, a MidAmerican executive. I'm not crazy about Rick Dobyns or Susan Mims, either. I would keep Jim Throgmorton, a University of Iowa urban planning professor emeritus, the only city councilor to vote against accepting the Moen bid.