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When Jennifer Davenport landed a job with Wells Fargo Financial, she knew there was just one place to live: Downtown Des Moines.

Bernard and Kay Huston were looking for a place to spend their retirement years. They considered the West Coast; they considered the East Coast. They picked the middle, a condominium in downtown Des Moines.

Shawn and Rebecca McMahon didn’t want to raise a child in Washington, D.C., where they had lived and worked for more than a decade.

They’re pleased to call downtown Des Moines home; it’s a place with “big city amenities without big city problems,” Shawn McMahon said.

Realtors and developers should like this news: Downtown residents are bullish on the area, its culture, its food, its easy living.

They point to the entertainment and dining possibilities. They like the short walks to work, they like the friendly atmosphere. They like the fact that they are saving money on gasoline. Many say it would be nice to be able to do more shopping closer to home, but they really aren’t complaining, much.

Besides, they point out, not many people can say they make one automobile trip a week, and that’s a five-minute drive to shop for groceries.

Kay Huston, 67, who gets a birds-eye view of the Court Avenue restaurant and bar scene from her 21st-floor home at Plaza Condominiums, likes the “happy sounds” that float toward her on summer evenings.

Mosey up to the skywalk from its entrance at the Kirkwood Hotel, take a quick left and you’ll locate the man downtown folks call “Jake the Barber.” He is, in fact, Jacob Minkel and the business is Skywalk Barbering.

The place, complete with small-town barber shop features such as a mounted deer, is a place to hear downtown chatter and downtown promotion, much of it coming from Minkel.

He has lived downtown for more than five years and has operated the three-chair shop for much of that time.

“I think if you’re living in Iowa, this is where the most activity is going on,” said the 37-year-old Minnesota native.

Minkel says he is such a promoter that he gets a commission for directing customers to openings in the 6,100 condominium units, apartments and lofts available in the downtown area.

He might be stretching that fact, just a little. The barbershop is a men-only business – “no perms, no coloring, none of that stuff,” he said – and the talk on a recent afternoon tended toward the ribald at times.

Still, he is a directory of local services. One customer needed a recommendation on a place to rent a motorcycle – a “bike” to be precise – and Minkel told him where to begin his search.

Minkel bought his one-bedroom condominium in Plaza Condominiums on a handshake.

“I’ve lived in many places in the country,” he said. “And I like the Midwest the best.”

Kanika Mayes is another downtown resident who soon will open her own business, Salon 112, at what are commonly referred to as the work-and-live lofts at East Village Square, 333 E. Grand Ave.

She is a Des Moines native whose family lived for many years in Denver before returning to the area in 1989. Her family lived on the hilltop north of downtown and she got a first-hand look at both the ennui and rejuvenation of the area.

“We lived in Denver when it was rebuilding its historic downtown area,” Mayes said. “After moving back to Des Moines, it was neat to see the downtown get developed.”

Now, Mayes will walk down one flight of stairs to her own business, which will provide “multicultural” hair styling. She will be open to walk-ins, but most of her business will be by appointment.

She plans to join the horde of other downtown dwellers who dine out a good part of the week, so she’s not too concerned about the lack of a downtown grocery store. All of the other conveniences she could need to near enough in the East Village.

“I just thought it would be the neatest thing” to live and work in one location, Mayes said.

And she won’t mind an occasional drive to shop outside of the downtown.

“After living in a big city like Denver, Colo., and hearing people here say that it takes five minutes to drive to Jordan Creek (Town Center), it just gasses me,” Mayes said.

While Mayes and Menkel are two people who live downtown and provide a service, there are others who take advantage of the opportunity to live, work, play, and, in one example, enjoy retirement downtown.

Jennifer Davenport and Brett Redenbaugh

An 80-pound boxer named Mace lives at Mulberry Lofts on the west end of downtown.

And according to Jennifer Davenport, 25, if you don’t recognize her big smile as she goes for a walk at Gateway Park or Gray’s Lake, you’ll at least know her dog, who also shares space in the 800-square-foot loft with Davenport’s boyfriend and high school sweetheart, Brett Redenbaugh, 27.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people call out, ‘Hi, Mace,'” Davenport said. “I think everyone downtown knows who he is.”

To her, it’s just one more reminder that she is living in a big city with a small-town heart.

Davenport is a marketing consultant for Wells Fargo Financial. Redenbaugh is a recent graduate of the Drake University law school who is studying for his bar exams. They are from Storm Lake, so they appreciate the small-town feel of downtown.

Davenport walks two minutes to work, four minutes when she takes the skywalk.

When she got the Wells Fargo job, there was no question where she would live.

“I can’t believe that more people don’t live downtown,” Davenport said.

Just consider that there are “at least 20” restaurants and bars within a short walk of Mulberry Lofts at 11th and Mulberry streets.

“The variety is huge,” Davenport said. “There is a lot more diversity that living in the suburbs just doesn’t have.”

Davenport said she dines out at least four times a week, and that doesn’t include weekend jaunts with other friends who live downtown.

On a work day, she can be out of bed and off to work in about 30 minutes.

She might drive 45 miles a week, primarily to go grocery shopping or visit friends in West Des Moines. Her car spends most of the year at the Wells Fargo parking lot.

The couple did spend an extra $15,000 when they bought the condo to secure a parking lot at Mulberry Lofts for Redenbaugh’s vehicle.

Shawn and Rebecca McMahon

A baby on the way changed Shawn and Rebecca McMahon’s view of where they’d like to live for the next few years, at least as long as it takes to raise a family.

The couple had lived in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade when they found out Rebecca was pregnant. They began to consider alternate communities, preferably in the Midwest.

Rebecca grew up in Des Moines, so the city wasn’t completely foreign to them, although she had not kept up with the transformation that had occurred downtown.

“Des Moines was on our short list because it’s such a livable city,” Shawn McMahon said.

The decision to move to Des Moines was easily made when he was hired as the executive director of the Iowa chapter of the Nature Conservancy earlier this year. The family lives at the Brownstones on Grand, so work is a mere two-block walk away.

Rebecca had to return to Washington, D.C., to teach at the Georgetown University law school for a few days after the family moved to Des Moines.

“That really hit home, how much she loves being in Iowa,” Shawn McMahon said. “In D.C. she felt like she had to keep her guard up at every moment.”

Now the family moves about the city with ease, and with three-month-old Marley Grace in tow.

“We’re impressed with Iowans — how friendly and outgoing they are,” Shawn McMahon said. “It’s really nice to be in a place with a sense of community.”

Bernard and Kay Huston

When Bernard Huston retired from banking in Ottumwa, he got the itch to find some new stomping grounds.

He wanted to go to the East Coast. Kay Huston favored the West Coast. In the end, after returning from a cruise and learning about the transformation of downtown Des Moines, they chose the Capital City.

“I said, ‘I wouldn’t mind living in Des Moines, it’s an up and coming city. It’s near a major interstate, it has an international airport,'” Kay Huston said.

Now, they live on the 21st floor of the Plaza Condominiums.

As with other residents, they are fans of local theater and other cultural events. They take in as many Iowa Cubs baseball games as possible. They go for long walks.

They can watch the city or they can hit the street and be a part of its activity.

“We’re like all those 20-somethings,” Bernard Huston said. “Well, maybe,” Kay Huston replied.

One thing’s for certain, they don’t miss an opportunity to join in of the marketing campaign that is part of the fabric of living, working and retiring downtown.