Mark's Community Calendar
If you or your organization would like to post your event here, please send Mark an e-mail detailing it with the Name of the Event, Title of the Contact Person, Location, Times, and Dates and he will post it as soon as possible.
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Meet Mark
To see a short video and discover Mark Renner, click here. |
| Photo Galleries |
Ak-Sar-Ben Village
It's a college town in the city.
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Missouri River Pedestrian Bridge
A new "landmark" pedestrian bridge will begin construction shortly. The design will be a signature landmark for Omaha.
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Mutual of Omaha plans condos, shops around larger Turner Park
Mutual of Omaha's midtown campus draws nearly 4500 Omaha workers. A $250 Million development could bring even more people to midtown seeking a place to live, shop and dine.
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Omaha Community Photos, Culture, & Recreation
You won't believe your eyes that this is Omaha.
Recently, a newspaper columnist in Kansas City wrote an open letter to the Kansas City Mayor urging him to visit Omaha and see what a vibrant city on the grow looks like. Omaha is "Happening!"
As reported by Mike Kelly in the Omaha World Herald, "An article in the Chicago Tribune took note of 'Omaha's resurgence.' The sheer scale of Omaha's $2 billion redevelopment, the newspaper said, has drawn admiration and envy from other Midwestern cities.
In embracing the riverfront, the Chicago paper reported, Omaha is not only partaking in the most ambitious redevelopment in its history, it is also seeking to achieve the goal of many midsize cities - to be exciting, a place where young people want to live.
And let's be honest. We've invested a lot in hope of keeping and luring more young people.
Omaha has long been known as a good place to raise a family or run a corporation. On the hipness scale, we may have ranked a bit lower. But we're starting to get it.
A thriving town attracts more than good families and good businesses. It also welcomes ethnic and cultural diversity, promotes variety in music and the arts and offers plenty to do in the way of parks, bike trails, entertainment and night life.
We may have walked behind the curve nationally in building a convention center and arena, but its opening last month (9/03) has made an impact. That the $291 million structure is visually striking adds spice. (We have had concerts by Fleetwood Mac and Cher in the space of two weeks.)
Those of us in the 78 million population baby boom generation, now 39 to 57, have been catered to all our lives. But many cities see that luring the younger generation of highly mobile young professionals is key.
In the Omaha area, there are things we can't control and things we can. We don't live next to an ocean, and you have to wear a coat in the winter. But in the things we can control, we are doing much better.
Our suburbs are lively and ever-broadening, but more and more people are living downtown, too. The Old Market attracts many with its restaurants, boutiques, theatrical performances, carriage rides and brick streets.
A $90 million performing arts center is under construction downtown, plus a Union Pacific headquarters to complement the new 40 story First National Tower. There's more, including the new riverfront Gallup University campus and plans for a pedestrian bridge across the Missouri River and 14 miles of riverfront hiking and biking trails.
Besides all that, we got rid of the rail yard and scrap-metal eyesores on the riverfront. Things just look a lot nicer in the present, and that makes folks feel a lot better about the future.
The city's new logo is reduced to a single letter and exclamation point, "O!" Let's not be too quick to ridicule it. With $2 billion being invested in redevelopment, the creative folks now have something to sell.
The Chicago Tribune, in its article touting Omaha, said midsize cities can have a good future "as Americans leave older urban centers for smaller, more manageable, less expensive areas with a high quality of life."
Omaha, whether you like the "O!" or not, sits poised to punctuate those points."
10/30/03 It was just reported that a recent national survey and article had determined that Omaha was the 30th ranked city to have fun in. This was ahead of New York and Orlando. Go figure!
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