Waterloo's Public Market

[Bike Iowa]

Downtown public market building takes shape

WATERLOO — The Waterloo Development Corp. is looking for a butcher, a baker and well, not exactly a candlestick maker.

The former TruGreen ChemLawn building at 325 W. Third St. is currently being renovated into a Public Market building as part of the Riverloop Expo downtown renovation project.
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2008 ... 438557.txt

I hope this turns out to be a nice addition to downtown, but I really don't like the "if you build it and they will come" feeling from this article. They should build out at least a commercial licensed kitchen. With Waterloo being Iowa's most diversed city, think of all the sauces, dressings and other tempting food products that could be produced from such a place. YUMM!

[Ingersoll1978]

The signage looks really cool.

[DMRyan]

I read every post on this forum and had no idea this project was going on. This is pretty big news for downtown Waterloo if you ask me. The Public Market sign could make this a local landmark similar to other markets like this in other cities. How far away from the riverwalk project is this building?

[WaterlooDave]

If you look at the Virtual Earth map linked below, the public market and exposition area is generally two square blocks bounded by Park Ave, Washington Street, W 3rd Street and Commercial Street. The public market building is at the corner of Washington and 3rd. The rest of the site with the exception of the bank building at Commercial and Park has been cleared and will be landscaped with brick pavers, decorative lights and banners and a multi-story pier type "sign" at Park and Washington.

The new addition to the Waterloo Center for the Arts is located just under the VE "Labels" menu at the top of the picture. You can also see work on the river wall in the same area. That is where an "arts plaza" and ampitheatre will be constructed. The RiverLoop trail will run along the length of the river on both the north and south banks from Conger Street to 18th St.

If you look in the river, you can see the temporary berm in the river for work on the dam improvements. Needless to say the damn improvements are pretty far behind schedule since that temporary work area has been washed out several times over the last year.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=42.49628~-92.340603&style=h&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&cam=42.495581~-92.341362&scene=28688252&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

[WaterlooDave]

Here are some photos of the Waterloo Public Market Building and RiverLoop Expo area under construction today (Sept 16, 08). Interestingly enough, this block of the project (in total the Expo area covers most of two blocks) is supposed to be used for the the celebration of John Deere's 90th year in Waterloo. Should be interesting to see how it will come together in the next week and one-half.

Looking west from Park and Jefferson:

Looking southwest from Park and Jefferson:

Looking south from W 3rd and Jefferson:

Looking west wider angle from Park and Jefferson:

[DMRyan]

Please keep us up to date on this as it gets further along. It looks like they're planning on putting in a lot of nice finishing touches to give it a more inviting atmosphere based on these photos. Hopefully some trees get planted in that large paved area too.

[UofIowaWaterloo]

I am going home for the weekend and I plan on taking numerous photos of all the projects occuring in Waterloo. They will eventually end up on the http://www.thenewwaterloo.com website in a few weeks. Look for the updates! Here are the projects I intend to photograph:

1. New bank on former brownfield site near Cedar River
2. New Lafayette Park within the Rath Neighborhood
3. East 4th Street Streetscape corridor (and the renovations occuring on the ground level of the Black's Building and the new Screaming Eagle restaurant/bar/apartments in the renovated Fowler building)
4. Public Market progress
5. Completed Sullivan Brothers addition onto the Grout Museum
6. Completed Phelps Youth Pavilion onto the Waterloo Center for the Peforming Arts
7. Developable lands after the demolition of former Rath buildings
8. Any progress occuring at the former Rath Administration building (not sure if there is any)
9. Renovation work at the iconic former Walker Shoe's building on East 4th

[lunksmoo]

What a great website! Thank you for promoting a city that needs some good P.R. that shows that Waterloo isn't the town a lot of people have misconceptions about.