Press Launch
Des Moines, Iowa — Friday, September 9, 2022 —The Des Moines Metropolis Council on Monday will contemplate an settlement to buy the previous Nationwide constructing at 1200 Locust Road as a part of a serious effort to consolidate authorities operations, improve services and improve providers. Consideration of the acquisition settlement is on the agenda for the Council’s usually scheduled assembly on Monday, Sept. 12 at 5 p.m. in Metropolis Corridor.
Metropolis officers mentioned relocating authorities operations from 5 areas to the previous Nationwide constructing would lead to substantive advantages that embody improved authorities effectivity, an improve of outdated and overcrowded services, a discount in surplus downtown workplace area and the longer term financial improvement of two Metropolis buildings and vacant parcels situated alongside the Des Moines River.
“We’re placing into movement a transfer of historic significance,” Deputy Metropolis Supervisor Matt Anderson mentioned. “We’re making choices at the moment that enterprise past workplace area and can set the course of how our metropolis authorities operates and serves residents for the subsequent half-century.”
The agreed-upon buy worth for the five-story, 360,000-square-foot workplace constructing is $30 million and represents a value per sq. foot of lower than $90. Building of latest business workplace area within the Des Moines market is presently estimated at $300-$400 per sq. foot. The Metropolis would additionally purchase a six-story 1,690-space parking ramp south of the previous Nationwide constructing for $10.6 million, nicely under new development prices within the metro.
The 2 Metropolis buildings focused for closure embody the headquarters of the Des Moines Police Division (constructed in 1918), and the Argonne Armory (inbuilt 1934) which homes Growth Companies, Neighborhood Companies, and parts of Authorized and Info Know-how. Every constructing is situated on the east aspect of the Des Moines River.
Personnel from the Human Assets Division within the Municipal Companies Middle and a number of other undetermined departments situated in Metropolis Corridor may be transferred.
For the previous a number of years, Metropolis management has labored to handle the wants for a bigger, upgraded legislation enforcement heart in addition to a brand new administrative constructing for these departments crowded into the Argonne Armory and assigned off-site workplace area at Polk County River Place. The acquisition of the previous Nationwide constructing would substitute plans to construct a $40 million administration annex east of Metropolis Corridor alongside Robert D. Ray Drive whereas the associated fee for a brand new DMPD headquarters was estimated at $160 million.
“We’re approaching a important want for upgraded and expanded work areas that higher replicate the course of at the moment’s Metropolis departments – notably within the areas of legislation enforcement, info expertise and cybersecurity,” Anderson mentioned. “The transformative alternatives that may be generated by way of this constructing buy will try this in a cheap and accountable method.”
The Metropolis’s subsequent step can be to problem a Request for Proposals (RFP) and choose an architectural agency to conduct a workspace utilization research to find out departmental wants, develop a grasp use plan and estimate the prices of workplace design and renovations. That research is anticipated to start in fall of 2022 with the primary part accomplished by mid-2023
