Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
City engineering team recommends renovating existing bridge to connect Fifth & Walnut garage to skywalk system
Summary
City staff recommended a preferred design to reconnect the Fifth & Walnut parking garage to Des Moines's downtown skywalk system, favoring renovation of an existing bridge and a sidewalk-level route to limit private-property impacts. The council asked for more study on long-term connectivity to a yet-undeveloped parcel and funding implications.
City engineering staff presented feasibility work on reconnecting the Fifth & Walnut parking garage to Des Moines's downtown skywalk system and recommended renovating the existing 4C/5C bridge and routing a sidewalk-level connection to the garage to minimize impacts to nearby private parcels.
The topic matters because the skywalk system is regulated by city ordinance and the city previously removed accessible vertical access at this block when a prior garage was demolished; Council members and staff said an accessible connection per block is required by ordinance and the lack of connectivity affects how downtown parkers and potential office or residential tenants use the garage.
City Engineer Steve Naber (speaking for the design team) said the downtown skywalk segment that previously served the block was removed in 2017 when the old Fifth & Walnut garage was demolished, and the replacement garage — finished in 2021 — lacks the required accessible vertical access to the skywalk level. The feasibility study considered three approaches: 1) a new angled bridge directly from the…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
