Geothermal, 5G and ‘home within a box’
Kris Kunze 
Founder and Managing principal, KCL Engineering 

Please identify one or more trends in your area to watch in the upcoming year.
One trend we’re really excited about is developers using geothermal systems to supply heating and cooling to entire hospitality developments. This is currently occurring at the Fairfield Inn & Suites, a Heart of America Group hospitality development, in Altoona. 

Could you please explain the impact of that trend? 
Great benefits include lower first costs, size diversity, heat share, and the ability to serve a building where land may not have been otherwise accessible for a vertical well field. Federal tax credits for geothermal projects are also available, making the strategy more attractive.

We’re on the cusp of seeing 5G cellular service become a reality in 2019. This means that we’ll potentially have “wired speeds” over wireless. As technology designers, we’re interested in the deployment of this service as it affects how we design technology infrastructure for our clients.  5G also comes with the need for more small-scale cell towers. We are closely watching the trend to see how and where those cell towers pop up and ultimately how the logistics of delivering 5G wireless service plays out.

Another trend we’re involved with is the concept of a “home within a box.” This is a much more sophisticated version of the home kits that Sears shipped out across the country a century ago.  This approach is being used to build high-end homes in less populated areas, where more variables come into play that can adversely affect a project’s schedule and quality. The goal is to achieve consistency in quality, scheduling and end product. The project is controlled by a tight partnership of development, design and construction entities that place more guardrails on a project to help meet expected standards.

Active north metro
Adam Plagge 
Economic development manager, city of Johnston 

Please identify one trend in your area to watch in the upcoming year.
The opening of the 100th Street interchange garnered much fanfare in 2018, and commercial development is already accelerating around the Urban Loop area in Johnston, Urbandale and Grimes. Last year also marked a significant push north in commercial development interest along Highway 141 and 100th Street. If you haven’t driven Highway 141 north toward Granger recently, you have missed the bloom of concrete and lumber coming out of the ground. Construction is underway by Hubbell, Menards and several banks in Grimes, as well as by Wesley Life and the Navy Reserve in Johnston. 

Could you please explain the impact of that trend?
In the spring, surveyors will begin tracking through the mud to prepare the way for the first leg of the city of Johnston’s three miles of planned sewer main that will push the development frontier farther north to Saylorville Drive, i.e., Highway 415. Fifteen hundred acres along Highway 141 recently annexed into the city of Johnston, and another wave of annexation requests are pending for 2019. Grimes, too, is busy planning for future infrastructure growth in the area, and the Iowa Department of Transportation is examining potential enhancements to the corridor’s road network in preparation for future growth. Buoyed by the annexations and a flurry of land transactions, new real estate signs touting rising land prices have sprouted up along the highway and several ambitious site plans are beginning to germinate. When the fly-over bridge onto Highway 141 opens in 2020 and the city of Johnston’s planned Phase I and Phase II utility extensions are completed in 2020 and 2021 respectively, the northern Highway 141 corridor will be poised to become a substantial commercial artery into the metro.