Late Twentieth Century (1950-1999)
Downtown Fort Wayne in 1960
Anthony Hotel Implosion in 1974
Flood of 1982
Landsat Image of Fort Wayne in 1983
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1950s-1960s: Residential Growth & Retail Dispersion
There were a variety of factors at play which dramatically altered the way Fort Wayne developed over the course of the mid-20th century. Because Fort Wayne was growing so rapidly, in the 1950s the City found it necessary to make provisions for the expansion of water usage. To quench the thirst for more water, the gates of the Cedarville Dam were lowered in 1954 to fill a 500-acre lake that would serve as a reservoir for the growing city.
Retailing activity, which was heavily concentrated downtown in the 1940s, began leaving for outskirt locations in the late 1950s and picked up speed in the 1960s. Some of the reasons for this trend included the spreading out of new residential zones, high property taxes within the downtown district, limited automobile parking downtown (including the removal of curbside parking), and the allure of a newly found suburban convenience. In 1955 the old Nickel Plate railroad tracks north of downtown were elevated above the street, eliminating a nuisance barrier that led to a “flood of suburban expansion” in the areas to the north of Fort Wayne, and served as yet another crucial point in the city’s history [16]. Glenbrook Shopping Center, an enclosed retail mall, opened in 1965 on Coliseum Boulevard in the city’s north end [2, p. 499]. 1970s-1980s: Economic Hardship, Downtown Decline, & Major Floods
Because retail was steadily leaving downtown, by the 1970s it became a “minority use” in the district, replaced mainly by office, government, educational, and other institutional uses. Several Public Housing projects built with Federal funding dollars were also well underway in the 1960s, including Beacon Heights apartments, McCormick Place, and Brookmill Court. Another type of use was also vacating downtown – hotels. In 1974, two historic downtown hotel buildings were imploded due to reasons such as declining revenues and issues with fire regulations; these were the Anthony Hotel and the Keenan Hotel. The former had previously been the top reception & meeting place for the city.
Though there were attempts at downtown renewal, some of which did end up resulting in success, much of the dense urban fabric was razed for the sake of progress while new development occurred in places such as the Interstate Industrial Park (starting in 1961), and in countless suburban subdivisions surrounding Fort Wayne [2, p. 515-552]. Coming out of the 1970s, the City of Fort Wayne was experiencing hardship with the decline of its industrial base, escalating crime and drug problems, and suburban exodus among other issues [4, p. 132]. The 1980s were among some of the darkest times for the city. In 1982, a major flood caused by a large snow melt and thunderstorms devastated several riverside neighborhoods in Fort Wayne, particularly the Nebraska and Bloomingdale neighborhoods. Due to valiant sandbagging efforts by many community residents, some other older neighborhoods flanking the rivers were actually spared greater damage. In the end, the 1982 flood had impacted 1,820 homes and 260 businesses, reaching an estimated repair cost of $56.1 million. The event “set in motion a series of engineering efforts to protect the city from future floods,” which paid off in 1985 and 1991 when similar water levels were recorded but the resulting damage was not as significant [4, p. 133-134]. The economic downturn of the early 1980s hit the Fort Wayne region hard, including not only the industrial markets but also the real estate market. New housing units built in Fort Wayne experienced a decrease “from a high of 1,921 in 1978 to just 228 in 1982”. The energy crisis and a series of strikes resulted in the departure of International Harvester from the Fort Wayne area in September 1982, a company which had employed over 9,000 employees in the 1960s, dealing a severe blow to the local economy. Other companies, such as General Electric and American Hoist & Derrick, also closed their doors during this time. Local officials began to realize that they needed to begin attracting new companies to the city and the region by offering new attractive economic packages, incentives and abatements. These efforts eventually led General Motors to approach the community in 1983 about building a new assembly plant, and eventually opened a brand new light truck facility in 1987 [4, p. 134-135]. Changes were happening in and around the downtown area as well. The Grand Wayne Convention Center was completed in 1985, and was accompanied by an adjacent Hilton Hotel, both of which received public subsidies to ensure the initial investments occurred. Holiday Inn opened in 1980 inside the renovated former Sheraton Hotel. However, many businesses (especially retail) began to leave downtown for the suburbs or go out of business. Three prominent auto dealerships vacated downtown in favor of a newly developing auto mile on Illinois Road in the western outskirts of Fort Wayne. The City struggled to bring activity to the downtown area during evening hours, even though venues such as the Embassy Theatre, the Performing Arts Center, and bars in The Landing historic district were mostly successful [4, p. 133-134]. |
1990s: Expansion & New Projects
A 1990 study by the Urban Land Institute found that the area just to the south and to the east of downtown, currently comprising the Hanna-Creighton, Chapel Oaks, and Larez neighborhoods, was “characterized by seriously run-down housing, crime, and decay…[with] no real market for new development,” and thus recommended enriching the services available in the area with existing churches as the centers of the community [39, p. 11]. This area has continued to struggle and has remained a blighted area since the 1980s.
Perhaps things could have gotten worse if Paul Helmke, a bi-partisan minded Republican, had not became mayor in 1988 and instituted new changes for Fort Wayne in the coming decade as “one of the city’s most effective mayors” [4, p. 138]. During his three terms as mayor which led into the 1990s, Mayor Helmke was known for two controversial issues: increased taxation and annexation. As mayor, he increased income taxes instead of property taxes because he felt the alternative would have put unemployed individuals in a more disadvantaged position. In addition, “during [Helmke's] twelve years in office, Fort Wayne added more than forty square miles to the city limits and 30,000 new residents,” which prompted some residents of Aboite Township to protest the annexation policy and even try to incorporate as the municipality of West Hamilton to avoid being annexed into Fort Wayne. The courts ended up ruling in favor of Fort Wayne. The mayor justified the annexations by arguing that the residents who lived in these areas were dependent upon Fort Wayne for cultural and economic amenities, and supported the view that cities with “elastic boundaries” were more likely to remain healthy versus cities with more fixed boundaries [4, p. 144]. In the 1990s the downtown landscape experienced changes once again with the addition of three new parks, already adding to existing parks such as Freimann Square. The four-phase construction of Headwaters Park began in 1995 and finished in 1999 at a cost of $16.9 million, and not only created a fantastic new green gateway for pedestrians and motorists approaching downtown from the north, but also helped control flooding in a more natural way along the rivers to the north. The Courthouse Green was also completed in 1999 at the cost of $3.2 million, and has since been given permission to be utilized as a rallying/protesting place and gathering site for the community [4, p. 140]. |
Mayor Paul Helmke
The Growth of the North Side
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