The City of Ames is considering a substantial investment in order to bring various social services together in a single campus setting. The rationale is that often the clients for these services require assistance from more than one agency, and so placing these agencies in close proximity to one another will help the clients. That makes sense.

The clients for these agencies have needs for other social services. Depending on the agency, they will be users of the library, the city hall, the post office, the social security offices, and the medical campus, all of which are located in the proximity of downtown Ames. Both the clients and the staff of these agencies in the campus would benefit by proximity to restaurants and stores within walking distance. A hub of our public transportation system is in front of the city hall.

The placement of a large concentration of employees in close proximity to the downtown businesses would be a great way to create external benefits from the investment in the social service campus. Main Street has been harmed by the city’s efforts to shift businesses to Somerset and west Ames and by the incentives to overbuild vacant office space. Placement of the social service campus near downtown would return foot traffic to Main Street. In contrast, as there are current social services near downtown, relocating the campus away from downtown would further erode the customer base for Main Street stores.

The proposed location of the social service campus at the current Evangelical Free Lutheran church offers no external benefits to businesses, will require transportation of clients to medical, library and government offices, and will involve the building of yet more office capacity in a city that has too much already. On the other hand, the E-Free land is within easy walking distance of a grade school and a high school, ideal land for residential housing space of which we have precious little in the Ames school district.

Perhaps there is no inexpensive land available in the downtown area, and it would be more expensive to build the campus near Main Street rather than on 24th Street. Nevertheless, if we were planning where to place a large concentration of jobs and social services, we would place it near the other public services and the commercial district. Saving some money to put the social service campus in the wrong place is still spending a lot of money to place the social service campus in the wrong place.