Waterloo 'lights it up' after passing of someone who kept the lights on
Spectacular downtown bridge, river illumination comes two days after downtown preservationist Donna Nelson passes away.
Waterloo “lit it up” recently -- illuminating the iconic Fourth Street Bridge pedestrian walkway and the Cedar River waters below in a way no one who has ever lived in or visited the city has ever seen before.
It was a longtime dream of someone who died just two days short of seeing it happen.
It’s dubbed the “Waterloo River Lights Experience.” And whole bunch of people were “experienced” for the first time the evening of June 1. Mayor Quentin Hart pushed the button and light flowed through the pedestrian walkway and illuminated the water cascading through the adjacent dam.
A sea of mobile phones from the assembled audience were held high to capture the tableau. The lights will be on nightly from dusk to midnight.
The bridge and river lighting occurred just two days after the death of longtime downtown developer and preservationist Donna Nelson. News of Nelson’s passing was only beginning to spread and wasn’t widely known at the time of the lighting ceremony. But the event resonated deeply with one of Nelson’s contemporaries, downtown property owner and auctioneer Rich Penn.
”When they turned on the lights on the Fourth Street bridge, I recalled an Up-downtowners meeting, a predecessor organization of Main Street Waterloo, with Donna, (late developer) Rene Dupont and several others. That meeting was 30-plus years ago,” Penn said. “One topic was the bridge, its reflection in the river and the beauty it could add to our downtown. Donna Nelson was a visionary.”
In what was perhaps a bit of serendipity, Mayor Hart said he too got the idea — from none other that U.S. transportation secretary and former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttegieg, who did a similar project in that city.
In fact the artist who designed that project, Rob Shakespeare, designed this one.
The project, announced months ago, was funded in large part by the Black Hawk County Gaming Association the nonprofit group which allocates a portion of Isle Casino Hotel Waterloo proceeds for community projects. MidAmerican Energy also made the project happen. No city tax money as used to make the project happen, the mayor emphasized.
Nelson was one of the early backers of a petition for a referendum which ultimately brought a casino to town - not downtown as she hoped, but a facility which would provide revenues to support downtown projects such as the bridge lighting project.
The initial illumination was a patriotic display of red, white and blue lights which will be a regular display along the bridge span, between Veterans Memorial Hall at Soldiers and Sailors Park on the west bank of the river and the Black Hawk County Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Paramount Park on the east side. That patriotic display will occur at the top of every hour nightly.
The illuminated expanse is part of “Veterans Way” project along Fourth Street. Light poles and fixtures along Fourth Street downtown are now adorned with photos and biographies of local veterans, a project of the Waterloo Exchange Club.
Up next later this summer will be continued work on Sullivan Brothers Plaza, honoring the five Waterloo brothers killed during World War II, where Waterloo’s recently renovated convention center is located.
The bridge lighting project accentuates and brings full circle many things—including Donna Nelson’s long crusade to preserve and promote downtown.
The Fourth Street Bridge also spans the distance between two downtown properties that Nelson, the daughter of a co-founder of Warren Transport, Inc., maintained for decades — the former YMCA building now known as River Plaza on the west bank of the river, and the landmark Black’s Building on the east side, built in the 1910s and former home to The James Black Co. department store. Both structures stand amid a revived district of shops and eating and entertainment establishments along Fourth Street.
The bridge lights will be coordinated with a similarly flowing light scheme around the convention center superstructure; and at the nearby RiverLoop Expo Plaza at West Park Avenue and Jefferson Street and the Riverfront Amphitheater, off Cedar Street and just upstream from the illuminated walkway. The amphitheater is adjacent to the Waterloo Center for the Arts and new riverfront housing built there by developer Brent Dahlstrom. He has a similar project on West Mullan Avenue and is renovating the downown Masonic Temple where Waterloo-raised Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Freedom School is located, offering an after-school reading and literacy program.
All that complements some significant public amenities which have been built and widely used over the past decade and a half, including Hawkeye Community College’s Van G. Miller Metro Center and the Cedar Valley SportsPlex, just a block from Young Arena, home to the Waterloo Black Hawks hockey team. That arena will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2024.
The recent bridge lighting project is a cathartic accentuation of all the developments downtown Waterloo has seen over the past nearly two decades. It’s been a long slow climb, not without setbacks, but steady progress nonetheless. Nelson was a part of much of that
The Rev. Dr. Mary Robinson, a local minister, lifetime resident and part of a citizens committee on the lighting project, recalled that the river was for too long a symbol of racial and economic division in Waterloo. Now, the multi-colored expanse is a celebration of the area’s diversity – begun just a few years ago when young people with the Youth Art team did an art project along the interior of the pedestrian walkway superstructure.
Yolando Loveless, executive director of the Black Hawk County Veteran Affairs Commission, a Waterloo-raised retired career U.S. Navy warrant officer, said it was appropriate that the lighting dedication was held at Paramount Park, near the Vietnam memorial, engraved with the name of all county residents killed or missing in action during Vietnam.
Paramount Park was chosen for the memorial back in 1986 because it was the location of the Paramount Theatre, a popular spot for young people. It was maintained for decades by Black World War I veteran James Lincoln Page, who organized the first Black Boy Scout troops in the city. Nelson sought unsuccessfully preserve the theater, which was lost to fire and flood control in the 1970s.
Those military veterans of all eras; the Black and white contractors who built the very streets, sidewalks and infrastructure of the city and all the women and men who made up the manufacturing drivetrain of the city in war and peace, all provided some very strong shoulders for the present generation of Waterloo residents to stand on.
Perhaps no one had a keener appreciation of that history than Donna Nelson. She was all about preserving and saving downtown Waterloo when it wasn't cool — especially for a woman to be such an advocate. Her husband of 70 years and East High School sweetheart, Vern Nelson of Nelson Insurance, supported her every step of the way, as well as her children, grandchildren and extended family.
Finally by the late '90s, Nelson started getting some help as more developers stepped up —not the least of which was attorney and VGM Group home medical equipment supply company executive Jim Walsh. Once a River Plaza tenant of Nelson’s, Walsh jumped into downtown redevelopment and founded Iowa Irish Fest. And various downtown booster groups reorganized under Main Street Waterloo.
Nelson’s property company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2021, due to mounting building upkeep partly related to flooding, and sagging rental revenues due to COVID, concurrent with the decline in her health. But contemporaries like Rich Penn say Nelson’s long stewardship of those properties and her downtown advocacy should not be forgotten. She held the line downtown for a long, long, time.
Nelson tried many things and fought many battles. Things didn't always work out for her, or for downtown. But when they didn't, she "failed while daring greatly," as Teddy Roosevelt put it in his "In The Arena" speech.
On some days, “daring greatly” meant just keeping the lights on, as Mayor Hart alluded to during the bridge lighting, recalling a slogan from the 1980s recession, “Last one to leave, turn out the lights.”
Donna Nelson not only kept the lights on, she was one of the individuals who shined a light and helped Waterloo open its eyes and climb up off the canvas after some staggering body blows.
Now a new generation has picked up the torch, and there’s a lot more lights downtown. Many say it’s quite a view.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
My Aunt Non was an amazing woman with a record amount of accomplishments.
The only thing she loved more than Waterloo was her family!
A well deserved tribute to Donna Nelson! She loved Waterloo!