A Closer Look: John Rowen

Director, Polk County general services

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If someone in Polk County needs, say, some paper clips or a clean floor or a new jail or a complete overhaul of the historic courthouse that borders Court Avenue, John Rowen is the guy in the middle of the action.

He’s a former county custodian who rose through jobs in secondary roads and worked stints as weed commissioner, union chief, code enforcement guy and as deputy director of the 109-employee department he now runs. General Services has an operating budget of $13 million and a capital improvements budget of $1.6 million. 

Rowen has supervised some of the most prominent construction projects since the county built Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino and Wells Fargo Arena.

Voters strongly rejected a $132 million bond issue in 2008 for new county facilities. But a 2013 proposal for $81 million that included an unusual land swap and the restoration of the Polk County Courthouse, the old J.C. Penney/Wellmark building and the downtown county jail won approval. Those buildings will house court facilities, courtrooms and offices.

We talked with Rowen about the flurry of activity.

Could you walk us through all the construction?
We came up with a court master plan. It started two years ago with tuckpointing at the courthouse. Phase two is the old J.C. Penney/Wellmark building, which is now Polk County Justice Center. It’s four floors, with the county attorney’s offices on top. They moved over from the Midland Building a couple of years ago. The rest should be substantially complete by July 25. We moved small claims courts and traffic from RiverPoint. We’ll have the juvenile court. The public will be in a secured area, and the inmates will come up from the back. No more parading them. And we won’t have any more contact among juvenile and adult inmates waiting for appearances. We’re calling it the Polk County Justice Center. The old jail will be remodeled for criminal courts. And we’ll restore the old courthouse.

There has been a lot of talk about the new Justice Center. What reactions have you heard?
It’s just beautiful, and I don’t think it is going to go out of style. It has a lot of daylight. 

What about the old jail?
We should have a bid awarded shortly. This will be criminal-only courts. We are taking the tower off the building and will use the steel and concrete below. We’ll remodel the bottom three floors, with 10 courtrooms and five spots for future ones. The facade will be glass, with some touches to reflect the Justice Center and make the buildings look like a campus. The jail building will be called Polk County Criminal Courts. It should be done by summer 2018.

And you are rehabbing the Polk County Courthouse?
Yes. We will restore the original four courtrooms to as close to their original condition as we can. We will make some improvements in how inmates are moved into the courtrooms. We will have “duress” buttons that allow judges to alert security. We want to make sure the judges, staff and public are in a secure environment. That project should be done by 2020, a year early. 

Your department supervises the new jail too, right?
Yes. The new jail is north of Interstate 80, near Delaware Avenue and Northeast 22nd. It opened in 2008.

How many buildings does your department manage? 
We have 20 buildings that we own and maintain, and five more buildings that we own but are maintained by someone else, like Prairie Meadows and the Iowa Events Center. We’re building a new north community center by Riverview Park that will get us out of our last leased space, at Park Fair Mall.

Do people confuse the Polk County Administration Building, where people get their vehicle plates and where the county supervisors meet, with the courthouse down the street?
(Laughs). We have two security people downstairs (at the administration building, a former post office). They talk to people every day who think they are in the post office, the police station, the courthouse, City Hall …

What else does your department do?
We buy and distribute supplies, handle the mail and do building management.

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