The tree in front of 108 W. Broadway received a reprieve this week.
The Council Bluffs City Council voted down a resolution Monday that would have allowed the owners of Glory Days to remove it in order to make room for additional patio seating in front of the bar.
The 3-2 vote against came a week after the City Council, Mayor Matt Walsh, and city employees from Parks and Recreation met with 100 Block business owners along West Broadway to discuss not only the future of the tree in question but also the entire downtown landscape.
“It was my understanding when we left that (meeting) that we were gonna trim these trees up, see what they looked like, and then go back and readdress the flow of the street out in front of these businesses,” council member Steve Gorman said at the study session before Monday night’s meeting. “And I would just like to see us do that in a manner that we can get a good consensus.”
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Since the topic was first broached at the Aug. 8 meeting, Roger Sandau has been the most vocal member of the City Council about allowing the owners of Glory Days to remove the tree in front of their establishment.
Sandau has called for the removal of all trees from the 100 Block and replacing them with a different, smaller variety of tree that won’t block business signs or obstruct passersby from seeing inside the stores.
“Eventually, those trees will need to be removed — whether that’s five, 10, 15 years, whatever that is — and put different trees in,” Sandau said.
This photo, provided in meeting materials to City Council members, shows the offending tree in front of 108 W. Broadway. Hidden behind the foliage is a rooftop bar, the view from which is obscured by the tree.
At last week’s meeting with businesses, Parks and Recreation director Vincent Martorello was asked how much longer the current trees could stay before becoming so large and burdensome that they would need to be removed.
“I responded five to eight years, and then that time frame was altered to eight to ten, and then we settle on a five to ten year period,” Martorello wrote in a memo he sent to chief of staff Brandon Garrett, who provided the memo to The Daily Nonpareil.
“This time frame was based on a lack of pruning effort,” Martorello continued. “With a pruning regime … we believe the removal of the trees could be delayed beyond a ten year period.”
Martorello also wrote that, over time, even with regular pruning, the trees will eventually become “malformed” and need to be removed.
So, Sandau has argued: If the trees are going to eventually be removed anyway, why not let the owners of Glory Days — at their own expense, not the taxpayer’s — remove the offending tree now?
“I’m not saying take one out and not put one back,” Sandau said at the study session. “I think we should put a different tree, a smaller tree that shows off the beautiful buildings, shows off the signage and is aesthetically pleasing to not only the community, but the business owners.”
Some council members voiced their concern that letting Glory Days remove one of the city’s trees would set a bad precedent, leading to other business owners wanting to remove unwanted or obtrusive foliage from around their storefronts.
“My question is: Are we gonna follow that one business owner’s plan for the 100 Block?” Gorman said at the study session. “He’s got an idea, but what about the other businesses all the way down the block? They should have a say. And, if we just allow that businessman to decide what he wants in front of his business, what kind of hodgepodge are we gonna have going down the street?”
Gorman noted that the 100 Block’s current look was designed as part of the city’s 2003 downtown master plan, and it shouldn’t be discarded so quickly.
“I’m saying let’s trim the tree up in the spring,” Gorman said at the study session. “Maybe it would be, ’Hey, these aren’t working out trimmed, maybe we need to get these down,’ I don’t know. But it gives us time over the winter when nobody’s sitting outside anyway to come up with a plan that’s gonna work for the whole block rather than just one business owner.”
After the resolution to remove the tree was defeated, council member Joe Disalvo made a motion to amend it by basically removing the word “tree,” authorizing Juon Investments to remove the planter and replace it with something that would better accommodate outdoor seating, like a grate.
The tree will be pruned back so its branches aren’t brushing up against the side of the building, and the canopy will be lowered so it won’t block so much of the view from the rooftop bar that Glory Days installed, and that particular situation will be revisited in the spring.
Council member Chad Hannen seconded Disalvo’s motion, and it passed by a 4-1 vote, with Sandau the lone dissenter — maintaining his position that it’d be best to remove the tree now and get it over with.
“These people have invested a significant amount of money in these businesses and they understand what is important to their patrons and why those people come down,” Sandau said before the vote. “Personally, I’m going to the 100 Block for the people, for the businesses, for the establishments, for the food. I’m not going down there to sit in the shade.”
