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The final element of a five-year multi-phase project in the East Grand Avenue area is under construction on the corner of Grand and East 16th Street. A speculative commercial building is being erected on the site, where a “turn-of the-century” brick building stood empty for more than a decade.

The initial goal of the $1 million project, which is being funded by the Neighborhood Development Corp. (NDC), a nonprofit that focuses on the revitalization of emerging urban neighborhoods, was to restore the existing building; however, after extensive budget analyses, it was decided that the most cost-effective plan was to demolish the existing structure and start over.

“We wanted to try to preserve the building,” said Karen Jeske, executive director of Des Moines’ NDC. “I think it is always worthwhile, and it’s a more conservative way to go. We tried really hard and did quite a bit of analysis to see if we could make that work, but it actually ended up being more cost-effective to build a new building than to preserve the old building.”

Jack Daugherty, the project manager from Koester Construction Co. Inc., said at first the NDC was adamant about refurbishing the building to preserve the look of the neighborhood, especially because this building will serve as the east anchor of the district.

“You hate to tear down a building and put that in a landfill,” Daugherty said. “But on this one, it just wasn’t possible to save it; it was too far gone.”

Instead, the proposed single-story, 5,800-square-foot building will occupy the corner lot with some of the walls stretching 27 feet into the air.

“It’s not just your typical box that you would see somebody put up in West Des Moines,” Daugherty said. “There are a lot of architectural thoughts that went into the design.”

Daugherty said the structure will feature multiple building materials such as burnished block, glass, concrete and Prodema panels, which are similar to wooden veneers.

“We’ve done a lot of redevelopment on that same block, and so we wanted that building to keep in scale with other buildings on the block, but bring a little more contemporary flair to it,” Jeske said. “It uses some of the same materials, but just puts them together in a different way than other buildings that are right there.”

The NDC began planning for the project in April 2007; Koester officially began construction on the project last August and plans to wrap things up by spring.

“The weather has really been sticking it to us,” Daugherty said.