DEVELOPMENT

Hubbell reveals 75-acre downtown Des Moines development

Joel Aschbrenner
jaschbrenn@dmreg.com

Hubbell Realty Co. has revealed its plans for a 75-acre development on the far south end of downtown — a glimpse at what would be the largest single development in downtown’s recent history.

Hubbell Realty Co. plans to develop a 75-acre residential neighborhood on the south end of downtown called Gray's Station.

Named Gray’s Station, the development would feature a mix of high-end, single-family homes, apartments or condos, small storefronts, parks and native wetlands. Preliminary plans call for about 1,100 housing units and more than $250 million in property value.

The development will fill an empty former rail yard on the north bank of the Raccoon River. It would sit between Southwest 11th and Southwest 16th streets, south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.

Hubbell, a West Des Moines-based developer that has invested heavily in downtown housing over the past decade, hopes to create a new neighborhood that offers owner-occupied homes — a rarity in the downtown housing market dominated by rental apartments in recent years.

“This area is going to be the signature urban development, a neighborhood that is taking housing to the next level in Des Moines,” said Joe Pietruszynski, vice president of land development for Hubbell.

Hubbell plans to break ground this year on environmental cleanup, earth-moving and the installation of utilities at the site. That would allow the company to start construction on housing units in 2018.

Depending on the economy, it could take 10 to 20 years to fully construct Gray’s Station, said Kris Saddoris, vice president of development at Hubbell.

The project stands out for its size.Most of downtown’s other housing developments cover only a few acres. Rita Conner, an economic development coordinator for the city, said she can’t think of another project that comes even close to 75 acres.

“This is the equivalent of a small town, really,” she said. “It is a tremendous opportunity to build a neighborhood essentially from scratch.”

City Council member Christine Hensley called it “a city within a city.”

Des Moines City Council member Christine Hensley

For comparison, Hubbell’s residential development in the East Village, called the Bridge District, was touted as being so large that it could create an entirely new neighborhood. It covers about 16 acres — roughly one-fifth the size of Gray’s Station.

As part of the project, the city is considering building a long-discussed bridge over the Raccoon River near Gray’s Lake.

Officials at Hubbell said the development will connect downtown to the Gray’s Lake-Water Works Park area.

“This community is the linkage between those two areas,” Pietruszynski said.

Des Moines-based RDG Planning & Design helped create the concept for Gray's Station. The plans call for tightly-packed single-family houses in the center of the development with some apartment or condo buildings on the outside. A few “boutique” retailers would be located on specific corners, with small parks dispersed throughout the development. Native wetlands would be added near the river to serve as stormwater retention basins.

Hensley said she wants Hubbell to build something dense that feels like a part of downtown, not a suburban neighborhood.

“I want it to be a real, true urban neighborhood,” she said. “I don’t want to see a bunch of parking lots. I don’t want to see three-car garages.”

The inclusion of owner-occupied single-family houses sets the project apart from other downtown housing developments.

More than 2,000 housing units are currently in the works downtown, but the vast majority are rentals. Fewer than 100 are for-sale townhouses and condos.

Apartments and condos have attracted young people and empty-nesters to downtown for years. But the addition of free-standing houses could attract more families to the city’s core, said Brennan Buckley, president of Iowa Realty.

“The thought of having single-family housing downtown, I think will be huge,” he said. “It’s going to be a game-changer.”

The land is currently owned by the Norfolk Southern railroad. Hubbell has a contract to purchase the land and could close the sale as soon as this spring, officials said.

The development would add to the burgeoning area south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, where Hubbell and other developers have built hundreds of apartments in recent years.

Hubbell Realty Co. plans to develop a 75-acre residential neighborhood on the south end of downtown called Gray's Station.

The addition of Gray’s Station has prompted preliminary talks about the potential for a new school. City and school district officials have discussed whether a new downtown school is needed amid the housing boom and whether south of MLK Jr. Parkway would be the right location, Hensley said.

The Des Moines City Council on Monday is scheduled to consider preliminary terms of a development agreement with Hubbell.

Under the proposed agreement, the city would provide about $10.6 million from property taxes generated by the project to help pay for the pedestrian bridge and stormwater retention wetlands.

Hubbell has been working on plans for developing the site for about a year. Environmental issues present some of the biggest hurdles. Cleaning up the site and preparing it for the first phase of development are expected to cost about $24 million.

The former rail yard contains thousands of buried railroad ties, rail tracks, old asphalt parking lots and dump sites where industrial waste and debris were buried, said Dan Cornelison, general counsel for Hubbell.

“This has been the dump for the city of Des Moines for a long time, and what we’re doing is working with our partners to bring it back and make it environmentally sound so we can build homes,” he said.