News Roundup: Coordinating Downtown, Trains on Parade, and Transit-Oriented Development for Cumberland

First Ward Alderman Patti Haugeberg is taking initiative to make downtown Des Plaines work; there is also a creative move to bring fiberglass "art trains" downtown.

Stepping Up To The Plate

Downtown Des Plaines Merchants Brainstorm Improved Marketing Efforts

By TODD WESSELL Journal & Topics Editor

Businesses in downtown Des Plaines last week continued to work toward organizing into a cohesive unit engaging in discussion about future marketing efforts such as creating a newsletter and other promotional projects.

This is a good start. The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street Program is the model to follow for downtown, and it rests on just four points: Organization, Promotion, Design, and Economic Restructuring. So far, this is a start towards the first two. The Main Street program has turned around hundreds of communities around the country, and they know what works and what doesn't. And what they tell us is that, like a four-legged table, you need all four for it to work. And they need to follow the eight principles. Des Plaines has the resources for a success story; it needs the plan. Recessions are a time when you don't have money for the "big idea that will save the city" (like Metropolitan Square or the Des Plaines Mall), so they are the time to make a careful plan and initiate the small changes that put you at a competitive advantage when better times come. A nice downtown will be better to shop at, yes, and it will give residents something to do. But in the bigger picture, it improves Des Plaines' marketability - companies look for a vibrant downtown when seeking places to relocate. I hope the leaders will brush up on the Main Street program; conveniently enough, a great book on it just came out in July, Revitalizing Main Street: A practitioner's guide to comprehensive commercial district revitalization.

And Patti has another cool idea up her sleeve: Trains on Parade.

Trains Rolling Onto DP Sidewalks?

Alderman Calls For Campaign Similar To 'Cows On Parade'

By TODD WESSELL Journal & Topics Editor

In 1999, the city of Chicago launched Cows on Parade—a wildly popular program that led to the placement of 300 life-size fiberglass cows at highly-visible locations along Michigan Avenue and elsewhere. Chicago got the idea from a similar program in Zurich, Switzerland, that included 800 cows.

Haugeberg's idea of using miniature trains is a natural, she said, because of Des Plaines' association with trains both commuter and freight which crisscross the city. Thousands of commuters regularly use Metra service on a daily basis with stations located downtown and in the Cumberland neighborhood off of Northwest Highway. Some motorists, however, regard local train traffic as a curse because they often stop vehicular traffic for long periods of time.

So, sure, it's not the most original promotion, but it's fun and it gets people looking at downtown. Sounds like a smart idea to me. The trains aren't going away, so maybe it's time we learned to stop worrying and love the train.

And, again in train-related news, there are plans afoot to take advantage of the Cumberland Metra station and make the area around it more suited for dense, transit-oriented development. That part of Des Plaines has always seemed a little quiet, considering it is on a highway and there's a train stop there. There's a smattering of retail - like the wonderful L&L Snack Shop. But not too many people are walking from home to the train. Rather than continue to overbuild downtown, some new development should probably occur around Cumberland.

A community meeting about this process will be held tomorrow (Saturday) at 11 am at the Frisbie Senior Center at Northwest Highway and Elmhurst Road.

If I could make one suggestion:

Maybe this:

Might be a little more attractive than this:

It may have burned to the ground on April 5, 1956, but it could use a train station that actually looks like a train station. That's why Metra has replaced almost all of these modernist shack stations, like at Dee Road and Park Ridge.