LANE4 Property Group held a news conference today to reveal what they had of their plan for the proposed upcoming face-lift on Campustown. The full story of what was said can be found on the news page, but here are the highlights: Campustown, as most people agree, could use a little bit of renovation.

LANE4 has been holding focus groups with students and citizens all summer to figure out what people would like to see develop in Campustown and why. Some proposals include a hotel, upgraded restaurants and better parking structures in and around Campustown. It seems like a pretty comprehensive overhaul of the current system.

The overall feel of the presentation was professional — these guys had done their homework. Although the focus groups were admittedly lacking the ideal student population due to their timing, they had taken the needs of students into account and had actually built the plan largely around them.

The idea is a better integration of campus and Campustown. The design students would be actively involved in the design of the new buildings, and the students who currently help with the hotel in the Memorial Union would be able to get involved in the proposed Campustown hotel, possibly a Marriott or Hilton. There would be student art and sculptures decorating the proposed new areas, and some offices currently housed on campus might be able to be moved to the proposed new office space.

And this is supposedly going to happen fairly fast. Each phase of the project was projected to last only a year or so, and construction could start as early as a year from now. While these projections are very early and may be a bit overly optimistic, the current state of the economy might also slow construction progress.

But the big challenge is the businesses and what should be done with them. As of now there are no plans to kick out any businesses, said Hunter Harris, spokesperson for the project. LANE4 will even offer relocation assistance to those businesses who do decide to move from Campustown to somewhere else.

Even so, this could pose a potential threat to businesses in Ames. Harris claims that the proposed hotel would require the Memorial Union hotel to shut down. That could mean a similar fate for some local businesses that can’t compete with, for example, Buffalo Wild Wings.

And let’s not forget that ultimately, Campustown will be heavily populated by college students most of the time. No matter how much you try to bring upscale, shiny new places in, we will still be college students. It’s going to be difficult to keep an upscale, classy feeling in any neighborhood where there are drunk students stumbling around every weekend.

The overall end goal will be a collegiate feeling, similar to the vibe that you get from a place like Stomping Grounds. Ideally, Harris said, it will be a doorway from the Ames community to the ISU campus. 

Overall, we feel that this will be a good idea for both the Ames community and for Iowa State. An integration of the two may help to blur the borderlines between them and promote a lot more interaction; something we don’t currently see a lot of.

The process, though, will involve a lot of variables. With businesses moving in, out and around, as well as university offices moving off campus, we should leave a lot of room for the unexpected. However, if everything goes smoothly, this has the potential to be a good thing for everyone.