Complete the Antelope Valley Project
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By ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star
Nothing changes a downtown landscape like a new park. Add a new network of roads. A new open creek channel. New bridges and a trail hub.
Throw in new housing and businesses and the possibility of university research centers and other entrepreneurial investments, and you have something that could transform the heart of a city.
It’s called the Antelope Valley Project, and it’s right here, right now.
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Flood control, transportation and urban revitalization project east of downtown involving the city of Lincoln, Lower Platte South Natural Resources District and the University of Nebraska.
Estimated cost: $238 million, with federal and local tax dollars paying for new creek channel, roads, bridges, trails and park. Flood control is $52 million; transportation, $108 million.
Who benefits: Eliminating 100-year flood plain opens up about 400 acres for residential and commercial development and gives university room to grow. Also gets rid of the need for flood insurance. Lincoln residents will benefit with new north-south roadway, trail links and east downtown park.
Barriers: The project is on track, officials say, but obtaining timely federal funds has been a concern. For example, there were no federal funds in fiscal year 2005.
Looks like: Brush Creek near Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo. That project reduced the threat of damaging floods in a downtown area and generated millions of dollars in development along the fringes of Brush Creek.
Possibility factor: Very strong. Substantial progress has been made on roads and Antelope Creek channel. Work is under way on P and Q street bridges and another section of channel, from Y to Vine street, is under contract.
But many Lincoln residents have no inkling that part of the project exists or that it’s on its way to completion by 2011.
“One of the problems with the project so far is its invisibility to a lot of people,” said Glenn Johnson, a member of the Joint Antelope Valley Authority, the group spearheading the $238 million project.
The 2015 Vision group identified Antelope Valley as one of the 10 pillars of its vision for Lincoln. The project, proposed in the early 1990s and under construction for several years, is now looking more like part of the vision’s foundation.
Here’s what’s been built so far:
n North and west legs of new roads on the northeast edge of downtown are complete. Work on the south section will start soon and the east leg, to near 27th Street and Cornhusker, waits in the wings.
n Work on Antelope Creek channel is about 35 percent complete. The project’s flood-control portion is finished from the creek’s confluence with Salt Creek near State Fair Park to Y Street. Work on the Y to Vine section is next.
n Bridges across Y and Vine are done. Spans across P and Q are scheduled to open this fall. Then work begins on an O Street bridge.
Sponsors say the project is designed to eliminate the threat of devastating floods along Antelope Creek, improve transportation, give the university use of nearby land and revitalize the blighted east downtown area with housing, businesses and community centers.
But to make way, 49 businesses, 47 homes and 12 publicly owned buildings were demolished or moved, according to city records.
Locals questioned the need for the project and many were upset.
Hard feelings remain today.
Developers interested
Antelope Valley was proposed in the early 1990s to protect more than 800 homes and 200 businesses from a 100-year flood.
Community leaders and representatives from the city, NU and Lower Platte South Natural Resources came up with a draft plan. Then more than 1,000 meetings were held, including community forums, before the plan was presented to the City Council, NU Board of Regents and natural resources district for approval.
No public vote was held on the project.
When finished, the project will free up about 400 acres for development. Some homes were built already along Vine Street, but the bulk of the urban development won’t occur until after the flood-control project is done in 2010.
The reason: Most of that land is still in the 100-year flood plain.
Anyone who wants to build now must elevate property with tons of fill dirt. Eliminating the 100-year flood plain by building an open channel to augment the existing underground channel will get rid of the fill requirement and need for flood insurance.
Cecil Steward, former dean of the UNL School of Architecture for 27 years, has supported the project mainly because it solves most flood problems on the east edge of downtown and prevents damage to some of the city’s most valuable land.
“It hasn’t been a single-issue strategy. It’s been one of the more comprehensive public works projects in my memory,” said Steward.
Steward believes Antelope Valley is capable of bringing more economic vitality to the center of the city by opening up land for housing, business and the university.
But he and others say the project needs time to fulfill its promise.
“I think it’s easy to be impatient ... It (Antelope Valley) is coming upon the state where the large public money parts of the project — roads, floodway, the general land assembly patterns — will be obvious,” Steward said.
“They will not be instantly beautiful or integrated visually into the fabric of so-called east downtown. It’s not going to be until the private sector takes advantage of the new land that is becoming available that it is going to look anywhere finished.”
Developers already are showing interest in Antelope Valley land, said Wynn Hjermstad, the city’s community development manager, but they are not ready to go public.
They want to build housing and research facilities to support the university’s vision for more Beadle-type research centers, she said.
And residential developers are talking about building everything from bungalows to apartment buildings that resemble mansions.
“Obviously, the most desirable property is next to the channel because it’s going to be beautiful,” Hjermstad said.
Although most development will take place after the channel work, Hjermstad said improvements will be made to existing neighborhoods before then. She characterized such developers as “urban pioneers” willing to re-invest in areas they may have not considered before.
K.C.’s billion-dollar creek
To get an idea of what a mature Antelope Valley Project will look like by 2020, visit Brush Creek on the edge of the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo.
Once devastated by deadly floods, Brush Creek was transformed into a meandering park and magnet for housing and commercial development.
“We felt like it would be a great linear park and an economic generator for the city,” said Terry Dopson, a former director of the Kansas City Parks Department who was instrumental in making Brush Creek a reality.
Today, development along Brush Creek is approaching the $1 billion mark, mostly due to investments from the private sector, Dopson said.
The Kauffman Foundation, for example, built a $50 million office project along Brush Creek. The foundation, with $2 billion in assets, supports entrepreneurship, education and research.
Dopson said there also have been substantial investments by a nearby museum, the state of Kansas and condo developers. And there’s more work to be done on Brush Creek. Only about 1.5 miles of the 4.5-mile creek is finished.
Getting rid of the flood threat and creating a linear park were key to Brush Creek’s success, Dopson said. So was creating a group of all the property owners along the waterway.
“There has to be a nucleus —some organization like Brush Creek Partners that pulls everybody together ... maintains the focus of what is taking place in terms of development along the creek and keeps it in the forefront of everybody’s mind,” Dopson said.
Will it slow the exodus?
The Joint Antelope Valley Authority, made up of representatives from the city, Lower Platte South NRD and university, is overseeing Antelope Valley and has hosted public bus and bicycle tours.
But Johnson acknowledges more needs to be done to promote the project. Once Antelope Valley hits Vine Street and proceeds south, it will be more visible.
Steward believes the project needs stronger leadership.
“I don’t see the JAVA committee being very public and proactive,” he said. “Seeing work on the ground is not enough. Four-fifths of Lincoln’s population has not been on the roadway.”
The 2015 Vision group sees Antelope Valley as a step in keeping younger people in Lincoln. Steward said that burden falls on the private sector and its commitment to invest in Antelope Valley.
“The more choices we have in housing and urban environments, the more walkable the center of the city is, the more attractive it’s going to be to young singles and young couples,” Steward said.
Wayne Teten, the city’s project manager for Antelope Valley, said the project will make Lincoln a more attractive place to work and play. And that will help retain young people.
More jobs, a new park and enhanced trail system all are bound to help, he said, but the project alone isn’t a panacea.
“There are young people who are still going to see Lincoln as being a smaller city than they really want to live in,” Teten said. “Maybe it will slow down the exodus.”
Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at (402) 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.
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