Initial Main Street Iowa visit generates goals, ideas

Debi Flanders and Tim Reinders, two staff members of Main Street Iowa, made their first visit to Lansing Thursday, March 8 as part of an initial assessment of Lansing's new designation as a Main Street Iowa community. During their visit, they spent time reviewing the Main Street Lansing office, going on a walking tour of the downtown area, and then having a lunch meeting with Main Street Lansing board members.
Reinders, a design consultant, noted the Luxfer transom windows with Frank Lloyd Wright-designed glass accents in a couple of the buildings on Main Street during the walking tour. “There is a lot of history here,” he assessed.
In the afternoon, Flanders and Reinders met with committee chairs, visited some Lansing businesses and got ready for a town meeting that evening. A total of 43 people came to TJ Hunter’s banquet hall for the town meeting meal and to learn what Main Street Iowa is all about.
The Main Street Iowa pair asked a series of questions and then had attendees write down their answers, come up to the microphone to voice them, and put them on a big “magic wall" at the front of the room. A variety of ideas about Lansing were generated. Most notably, people were in favor of seeing more activities take place at the newly created Main Street Plaza downtown.
Flanders and another Main Street Iowa staffer, Jim Thompson, will return in May to meet with community members again and try to take some of the ideas from the first meeting off the “magic wall” and work them into reality. Main Street Lansing is hoping to spark interest from the community, downtown businesses, and seasonal residents, and to make Lansing an even more fun and desirable place to live, work, and play.