Developers and community groups shared many opinions Wednesday on design standards for newly annexed land near Interstate 35 and 13th Street that could hold a new mall.

The meetings were two of seven held this week to determine additional design regulations for the East 13th Street Overlay District. From each meeting, two representatives will be selected to serve on a steering committee, which will make a recommendation on the regulations to the City Council sometime this summer.

“The idea of going through this process is to come up with broad guidelines to reach a constructive consensus as a community instead of to meet a proposal already on the table,” said Matt Flynn, director for the Ames department of planning and housing.

Ray Anderson, planner for the Ames department of planning and housing, said that the end product will be a zoning overlay district with which incoming developers will have to comply.

Jeff Johnson, president of the ISU Alumni Association and the Ames Chamber of Commerce, was one of the members from the developers’ meeting selected to the steering committee.

“We have a unique opportunity to design a piece of property that reflects the history and character of the city. I hope that the gateway will create a sense of place — that Ames is more than just a shopping center,” Johnson said.

Both groups focused on the aesthetic quality of the new development.

“We want something that is evocative of a progressive community. It has to have an image that carries some kind of message about the people of Ames,” Dan Krieger of First National Bank said at the developers group meeting.

Both groups discussed the design elements they wanted for the project, but it was stressed that the project might not necessarily be a mall.

“We [the city of Ames] do not have any active application currently on file to develop the property,” Anderson said.

The gateway could ultimately be any number of things, Anderson said, including a hotel, a community college or even a hospital.

Citizens at the evening meeting for neighborhood groups also agreed that the development needed to be not only functional, but representative of both Ames and Ames residents.

“We need a quality design that we can be proud of,” said Cathy Scott of Ames. “It can be beautiful, but if it doesn’t ‘work’ for people to be and work in then it isn’t very useful.”

Both groups also emphasized the need to look to the future of Ames, and how the new development would fit into it.

“It’s important from a design perspective that we use it as a springboard for future growth in the area,” said Tom Steeler of Composite Technologies at the developers group meeting.

Ames residents agreed.

“We need to consider it not just as a link to the city and to the interstate, but also to the north and the east,” said Andy Bock, library assistant for Parks Library. “We need to think about the next steps and stages in the future for this area.”

Both groups said they were interested in giving a positive and inviting image of the community.

“This is a chance to ask the developers to think about how they can expand the rest of the city. At some point, we need to ask, ‘Does it tell our story?'” Johnson said.