Bush visits New Albany twice; Property taxes; Ground broken for dormitories at IUS; Doug England wins again; Firefighter test brouhaha; Chalfant breathes new life into T.B. hospital; Sixteen cases of e-coli; No-bid contracts for sewer and drainage work; unequal council-districts bring lawsuit; Railroad bridge for Grantline; Deputy killed in line of duty; Georgetown still looking to place sewer plant; Bill Koehler resigns from Parks Department; Stormwater fees; Downtown merchants begin special Saturday hours; Floyd County adopts animal control ordinance.
These are the local stories the Tribune suggested as the most important of 2007. Readers were asked to select from this list, the one story they felt was, indeed, the most important local event.
From this list, the story I think has the most far-reaching impact on New Albany, and thereby the most important for New Albany is the construction of dorms at IUS. This is such an important development because it signals that Indiana University Southeast is taking a major step beyond the "little brother" relationship to I.U. in Bloomington. It signals that the campus is growing. A growing college will add more degree programs and feed further growth.
I'll apologize to any IUS alumni or faculty, in advance, for my recollection, which I'm sure is hopelessly out of date now. But, I remember a time when the degrees from the regional campuses of I.U. were conferred with , if not literally, at least figuratively, an asterisk. That imputed asterisk signified a distinction with a difference. At one time IUS was derisively called Grant Line High. That was a holdover from the former "Warder Park High" from the time before IUS migrated to New Albany from Jeffersonville.
The construction of dorms on the campus of IUS offers the chance to change the asterisk to an exclamation point. People living in a campus dorm are not likely to be residents of nearby counties or towns. These students will live in a campus community far different than was previously available. These students will come from someplace else and may actually feel a pull to stay here after school ends for them. The growing campus will naturally bring more teachers, who are affluent and could be invited into a deeper involvement incommunity affairs. This development offers great potential for our city.
New Albany can capitalize on this opportunity by developing an attractive, functional downtown district which meets many of the commercial needs of the campus residents. The highlighting of the downtown district does not mean that other areas of town would be shut out. As an example, Bloomington has a downtown which is comparable in scale with New Albany's , it is, however, much more commercially vibrant. Bloomington simultaneously supports several suburban commercial districts. The downtown district is a walkable environment filled with independent businesses, while the suburban areas are auto-centric with chain-structured businesses. New Albany has the latter but we need to focus much more on the former.
Will all or most of the resident students at IUS have cars? If not, how will they get where they need to go? Enhanced bus service to the campus will be required. A bus to Wal-mart or a bus downtown? In all honesty, the most likely choice for such a student would be a trip to the mall where, as the ad used to say, the student could find, "more stores, more choices." New Albany's downtown, as all downtowns are, is a mall without a roof. There could be plenty of stores and plenty of choices if there were plenty of people with vision and ideas.
New Albany's downtown already has many "captive customers" working at government offices, banks, law firms, etc. The addition of resident students could be just the catalyst New Albany has needed.
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3 comments:
Whether or not the dorms impact our downtown positively or negatively is a toss up depending on a lot of factors and I whole heartedly agree with you that public transportation is one of the major ones. One thing I find strange, though, is that so few downtown landlords seem to market to the university.
Among other things, dorm construction is a testament to the number of students seeking housing, but no one seems to be promoting downtown as a solution. It's apropos of the general disconnect, I suppose.
Though the Tribune didn't mention it, I think the new Purdue campus could have quite an impact as well.
bluegill:
That was a definite error of omission on the part of the Tribune. Perhaps they are waiting for a certain stage of attainment before including it.
I heard someone remark, rather snarkily, that John Shine donated the land for Purdue in order to "stock the pond", with better candidates for his business. We could only hope that other citizens would be so self-serving.
The construction of dorms is, I feel, important on so many levels. I simply focused on its potential impact for downtown.
The challenge New Albany needs to rise to, is to weave IUS into the fabric of the city, rather than viewing it as "some place" out Grant Line Road that doesn't concern us, inside the beltway or outside academe.
I agree John, the growth of IUS/Purdue in NA is going to be an opportunity downtown can really support. They should be promoting our vibrant downtown in their recruiting brochures at IUS. They will if we keep up the good momentum downtown. While public transportation links are vital I think we also need to think greenway bike paths from IUS to downtown.
Of course the Shines are shocking the pond, duh. But thats how good civic deeds work generally. The giver and givee both benefit. we've had a dreath of private citizens willing to do their charitable part for the town so I can only hope more individuals follow John shines lead and do more self-serving projects in NA.
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