Iowa Downtown Resource Center presents findings of three-day stay in Clear Lake

CLEAR LAKE — Members of the Iowa Downtown Resource Center on Thursday wrapped up a three-day stay in Clear Lake, conducting interviews, touring the community, and identifying opportunities for improving the community’s downtown area. Clear Lake was selected for the assessment by the Resource Center, which is a division of the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

The Resource Center’s Jim Thompson says there are a number of things that the community can do to improve the downtown core. “I think building condition is really one of the things that we highlighted. We love the activities that are going on here, love the visitor attraction that Clear Lake has, but with a very compact district, we’ve got to make sure the buildings are being maintained appropriately. They look good, but they won’t forever if we don’t make sure that we encourage reinvestment.”

Thompson says another issue they’d like to see addressed is parking in the downtown area.  “Generally speaking, off-season there’s no real issue with parking, it’s during the peak season. What we heard regularly was people are willing to walk four or five blocks to get to the events they need to go to, but it’s still four or five blocks. We’re trying to say public parking that we witnessed is not identified real well, so we want to make sure it’s maximized so that more and more people can find it. We almost want to be in their face.”

Other suggestions made include seeing owners implement better signage identifying their businesses, and he says Clear Lake can take advantage of a number of state-sponsored and funded programs to improve the downtown area.