SPECIAL FEATURES
| |
|
By Jim Pollock
Imagine driving up Interstate 35/80 on a cold, dark winter night. As you near Rider Corner in Urbandale, your eye is drawn to something warm and bright off to the west. It towers over the landscape, it glows - and it makes you wonder what else is over there, too.
Daniel Rupprecht can see this already in his mind's eye. The founder and president of R&R Realty Group has used fountains as a signature at his business park developments, but the Paragon Office Park taking shape in Urbandale is his biggest project, and so he wanted to crown it with something different. Something special.
How about a cylinder 10 stories tall, wrapped with images of prairie grasses and flowers created in a glass mosaic by Italian artisans? Definitely special.
The Paragon Prairie Tower concept is in the hands of David Dahlquist of RDG Dahlquist Art Studios, and should become reality next summer. It will sit on a plaza surrounded by four acres of water at the Meredith Drive entrance to the 280-acre office park.
The prairie art and the silo shape are meant to reflect Iowa's history, Rupprecht said. "It will be a glowing reminder of our heritage," he said. Reminiscent of silos and grain elevators, but situated at the entrance to an array of new office buildings, it will represent "how our state has progressed from farm work to office work."
Rupprecht expects to spend $1 million or more on the project, and noted that there is some "sticker shock" involved. "But it's like looking at puppies," he said. "When you start calling it by name, you own it."
The idea originated in Scottsdale, Ariz., where Rupprecht and his wife, Phyllis, spend part of each winter. Standing at the corner of Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard is an unusual 120-foot spire designed by the legendary Wright, who also liked to winter in Scottsdale. The architect and designer liked it so much that he built a studio and residence in the desert and named it Taliesin West.
"I thought that would be a great feature as an entrance to our park," Rupprecht said, and he found out that the museum has a number of similar designs that Wright sketched but never built. But the keepers of the Wright legend weren't interested in seeing one of those sketches come to life now, so Rupprecht tried another approach. He contacted RDG.
"They brought out some ideas, and at the last part of the presentation, David Dahlquist showed us this," Rupprecht said. "He talked about our heritage, mentioned that Living History Farms is nearby, and suggested we do something that characterizes the state and who we are.
"His idea was to use glass mosaic tile, which hasn't been done in the United States on any kind of scale. And as we talked, the idea captured everybody's imagination."
"As the concept grew, we all realized it wasn't just an icon for Paragon Park; it was becoming an icon for Central Iowa and the region," Dahlquist said. "The image is one of the prairie -- big bluestem grass, black-eyed Susans, colors you might see if you were looking up through a field against the sky. I call it a tapestry of color."
Lighting will play a key role, too. Lights will be positioned on the plaza to shine up and evenly illuminate the mosaic at night. "Inside RDG, we have a great lighting designer, David Raver," Dahlquist said. "We tested the tower in computer models so the lights would not 'hourglass' the tower -- no hot spots and no cold spots. There also will be a light at the top in a blue drum or disk, silhouetted against sky almost like a candle."
Dahlquist hopes to make a trip to Ravenna, Italy, to see the mosaic as it's being created. "Right now, glass tile is very hot in architecture," he said. "Only two schools in the world teach the ancient art of glass mosaic, and one is in Ravenna. They're still training master artisans the way they've been doing it for 1,500 years."
The tower will be constructed with precast concrete panels. The tiles will be affixed to a mesh material in Italy, following a pattern laid out with a computer program, then shipped here for installation.
Rupprecht hopes the Prairie Tower will help build interest in Paragon among potential tenants and serve as a point of pride once they move in, and he also expects it to pull a few travelers off the interstate.
It also could be his last opportunity to place such an imposing structure on Iowa's landscape while he's still in charge of R&R. Rupprecht is just 63, but has begun making the transition to a less-active role in his company, where the management includes three sons and other family members.
"I've been stepping out of a lot of important parts of the company," he said. "I was told by a very savvy CEO [John Taylor, former head of Bankers Life Co.] that you should treat the job like a relay race: hand off the baton when you're still running at full speed."
Rupprecht grew up in tiny Howells, Neb., and came to Des Moines in 1967. He had been teaching math and coaching in Grand Island, but a salary that never topped $6,000 wasn't enough to keep him there.
He went looking for an actuarial job, but found work in the real estate department at Bankers Life instead. He stayed with the company - now Principal Financial Group Inc. - for 17 years.
Next came a short stint with Iowa Realty Commercial, where he learned more about Central Iowa real estate from Bill Knapp. In 1985, Rupprecht went out on his own.
"The timing was extraordinary," Rupprecht said from his vantage point 21 years later. "Iowa had gone through a farm crisis, and a lot of real estate needs weren't met during that time. There was a lot of pent-up demand."
Through various joint ventures, R&R developed Three Fountains Office Park, Aurora Business Park, Country Club Office Plaza and other projects in the western suburbs.
"We're the only ones doing what we're doing," Rupprecht said. "There's no shortage of people who build office buildings, but we're the only ones building large office parks. We own the land, develop it, and have something to do with the architecture."
And, at least once, they'll put up a tower like nobody's ever seen.
|
Article Comment Submission Form
|
|
