A Des Moines venture capitalist and his wife have donated a reported $40 million worth of large public sculptures for a sculpture park, part of a significant redevelopment effort by the city.
"It is the latest major project in a broad redevelopment, started in 1991, of Des Moines's downtown, which used to bustle during weekdays with insurance and government workers but fell quiet soon after 5 p.m. That has been gradually changing over the past few years, especially with the opening of a new public library, a science center and an events center, as well as a burst of commercial and residential development.
While the recession has slowed the makeover, the sculpture park is providing a cheerful, even optimistic, counterpoint to the economic gloom, as well as to the destruction across Iowa by floods and tornadoes in 2008."
FULL STORY: Cure for Urban Blight: Plant Lots of Sculpture
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