Restaurant developer Tom Baldwin said he’s excited to bring a new business to Valley Junction, just a few blocks from where he grew up and an area he has visited often.

After working to preserve the building that once stood there, the West Des Moines City Council recently approved a development agreement with Baldwin for the construction of a new building where the Longest Yard bar once stood in Valley Junction.

Ryan Moffatt, the city’s director of community and economic development, calls it a “good outcome to an unfortunate situation.”

The Longest Yard, 122 Fifth St., was deemed beyond repair and was razed in 2024. In its place will be a two-story building with a restaurant-bar concept on both floors, Moffatt said.

The Longest Yard closed in July 2022.

The former building, built in 1894, was purchased by Forest Avenue Properties LLC, from Commonwealth Properties LLC in February 2024 for $550,000, according to the Polk County Assessor’s Office.

Before the building was demolished, the taxable value of the property was $303,000. With the building gone, the taxable value is $143,000, the assessor’s page shows.

Forest Avenue Properties is the real estate entity behind the redevelopment of the site, and owned by Baldwin, the owner of other establishments including the Breakfast Club and Grimaldi’s Pizza.

Moffatt said the business that will go into the new building will be operated under Baldwin’s Dark Side of the Spoon hospitality group, which manages his other restaurants.

Moffatt said the city worked with Baldwin to try to rehab the building that was there, but in the end, it was determined the best thing was to demolish and replace it.

“We fought really hard to preserve the building that was there,” Moffatt said. “We were pulling out all the stops to get him to rehab the existing building. But there were three separate structural evaluations done, including one commissioned by the city, and as time went on every structural evaluation kept getting worse and worse in terms of the condition of the building.”

Moffatt said most of the maintenance that was needed had been deferred before Baldwin purchased it and despite incentives and resources that were available, it was determined that trying to restore the building would be “throwing good money after bad with the condition the building was in.”

The new building will be bigger than what had been on the site at about 6,000-square-feet.

Baldwin said he’s currently working with banks on various financing packages and hopes to break ground on the building soon and have it open for business early next year.

He said he’s been wanting to find a location in Valley Junction for some time, but didn’t know how badly the building had deteriorated when he bought it.

“We knew it was an older building, but we had no idea that it was in such terrible shape, that it had been let go over the past several years, to the point where the city felt when they had their engineers or their inspectors come in that it was going to fall down,” Baldwin said. “So it really left us no choice but to take the building down. It was going to be nearly impossible to restore it or to preserve it.”

Baldwin said he grew up just a few blocks from Valley Junction and is excited to bring something to the neighborhood.

“It’s one of the oldest historic neighborhoods that there is that really still has the same vibe that it always has,” he said. “Even though it’s gone through changes it’s still maintained a very good vibe. For the past 40 years, 50 years that I’ve been around, we go there all the time, and have gone there all the time and it’s gotten even better with some of the new restaurants and bars that have opened up recently and the farmers market.”

He said he’s still working on the concept for the business, but hopes to have more to announce in a few months.

“We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, other than to be a good fit for Valley Junction and the customers and people that already come down there,” Baldwin said. “We’re really working on coming up with the exact perfect concept that will help complement the area.”

Design guidelines that are in place for Valley Junction will ensure the new building meets the historic character of the Valley Junction neighborhood, Moffatt said.

“We are elated with the fact that the building will be very high quality,” he said. “It’s historic appearance, it’s not an exact replica but it does pay homage to the historical architecture in the area. I think it’s going to be a good outcome.”

The city has agreed to provide a 10-year, 100% tax increment finance package for the project.

The city will also use its Property Improvement Fund and Regulatory Compliance Fund as incentives for the project. One is a $75,000 forgivable loan. The other is a $75,000 grant.

It’s also going to be nice to see that hole on Fifth Street filled again, Moffatt said.

“We’ve got a gap that has been there since the building came down and it’s going to be good to get that gap filled and get a business there that is going to contribute to the vibrancy of the neighborhood,” he said.