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Before Urbandale development reached toward him from the south and east, Chipp Manders could kick back on his slice of land, build a bonfire and enjoy a beer.

That was in the mid-1980s. Manders owned a half-acre strip of property along some railroad tracks, not far from where Interstate 35/80 defined what, at the time, was the city’s northern frontier.

A railroad track at his back and cornfields at his feet, Manders had the place all to himself.

He leased a corrugated steel building from the railroad and, equipped with a pickup truck and a hammer, launched a business buying and selling shipping pallets.

A good 20 years earlier – about the same time that I-35/80 was completed – William “Buck” Flesher was buying about 180 acres of farmland in the same area. In fact, it ran up to and around what would become Manders’ business, Pallet Recyclers of Iowa, 11045 N.W. Meredith Drive.

Flesher “asked me one day if I wanted to drive out to the farm, and I remember thinking this is 20 miles from anywhere,” said Steve Weltha, recalling a trip he took to the land shortly after marrying Flesher’s daughter, Catherine, in 1974. The Welthas inherited the farm in the late 1980s.

Manders’ business and the Weltha land no longer sit in the middle of nowhere.

The Welthas have sold some of their land for a SuperTarget, a Home Depot store and Interstate Business Park. By its current configuration, the land stretches west from 100th Street and beyond Northwest Urbandale Drive to what are now Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd. tracks. The interstate is to the north and Meredith Drive and a residential development make up the southern border.

The Urbandale City Council recently approved rezoning another 76 acres for retail and office space.

The Welthas will pay to pave two lanes of a four-lane extension of Plum Drive and they will pay for turn lanes from 100th Street into Plum. They have given the city land for rights of way and retention ponds.

“We’ve gotten along very well with the city of Urbandale,” Weltha said. “We know what’s expected of us.”

Manders attended the March 25 council meeting at which the rezoning was approved. His property has received lots of attention over the years, too, primarily from people who consider the pallet shop a blight on the development landscape.

Manders said he understands “I’m an eyesore.” He also knows that he’s a small businessman sometimes butting heads with forces larger than he is.

Development along Urbandale’s interstate corridor has contributed to the growth of his business.

Part of the rub is that the pallets are in stacks several feet high and the galvanized steel building looks out of place among modern warehouses and office buildings, not to mention SuperTarget and Home Depot.

There have been some offers to buy the land, but few beyond its appraised value of around $25,000.

“I’m scared to death that with the power they have that they can just come in here and say “you’re done’ and take my land from me,” Manders said.

If “they” refers to the city of Urbandale, that scenario probably won’t unfold. When Meredith Drive was expanded to four lanes several years ago, planners put a southerly jog in it in order to avoid Manders’ land.

City Manager Robert Layton said it would be costly for the city to attempt to acquire the property because it would have to calculate the value of the business into any offer. Besides, Manders has been “good to work with” in recent years.

Like many landowners, Manders says he is just living out a dream.

“I dreamed of having a business here in Urbandale in this industrial park,” Manders said. “My business grows because of the development. Of course I don’t want to move.”