Around Des Moines

The wishes of residents near proposed and current Hy-Vee and Dahl’s grocery stores are running head first into the freedom of commerce that the companies have a right to expect. The silent third partner in that mix, though, is the underlying condition of and expression of Des Moines’ economy. With this being the famous Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping day, it seems an appropriate time for a commentary about the larger conflicts represented by the proposals of the grocery store chains.

The downtown farmers market is an example of business over economics. Thousands of people crowd Court Avenue on Saturday mornings over the summer and the businesses and organizations who are allowed to participate can benefit. Yet, the contrast between the hordes of shoppers flooding into malls on this post-Thanksgiving shopping day and the emptiness of downtown Des Moines was very stark. If the downtown farmers market was about economics, the downtown retail scene would be much stronger. An example of business over economics is Mainstream Boutique. This clothing retailer has a store on the skywalk level that is open for the few hours when office workers take lunch. The business also has stores in Valley Junction and in Pella. On Saturday mornings, it has a booth at the downtown farmers market. Alas, by being at the market instead of opening its skywalk store on Saturdays, all that consumer traffic generated by the market is given no reason to stay downtown. Moreover, businesses from other communities who use the market to reach new customers have no incentive to open fixed stores downtown.

The skywalk system itself is an economic noose. An article on the Minneapolis skywalk system recently appeared on MinnPost. The article looks at the view of Jan Gehl, a Danish architect, who states that Minneapolis is not large enough to sustain two levels of businesses, i.e., street level and skywalk level. It is an observation about Minneapolis I have made myself and I find Des Moines’ skywalk system to be even less valuable.

My word limit is about to be reached and the grocery stores still have not been discussed. The question usually asked is, how do we balance the desires of residents for neighborhood-sized businesses with businesses’ desires to decide for themselves how they want to invest their resources? While this is a very important question and one definitely meriting hours and hours of public meetings, we also need to be asking how the resulting compromises will grow the economy of the city. Building the economy means creating jobs (full- and part-time, low- and high-skills), increasing sales tax revenue, and otherwise creating enough growth in wealth to at least sustain the current average household income.

The Dahl’s plan that I have seen concerns me as both a resident and in terms of economics. The specifics of those concerns will need to be covered in another post. For readers who want more information now, check out the discussion thread about the Dahl’s on Ingersoll at absolutedsm.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.