Three years ago, Walgreens and Iowa Video moved out of central Beaverdale and into new locations farther North on Beaver Avenue. The Woodsmith Store went out west, and roughly 20 units in the community’s commercial center remained vacant.

Now most retailers looking to move into Beaverdale cannot find a place to set up shop. Ace Hardware soon will open in the old Walgreens’ location, and after receiving 60 phone calls for one open unit, Tom Boesen, who owns a shopping center in central Beaverdale with his two brothers, will rent his last space to a bookstore.

“A few years ago, it seemed that maybe the business core was lagging a bit,” said Bill Miller, president of the Beaverdale Neighborhood Association. “It was a situation where the neighbors noticed it, stepped up and said, ‘Let’s take a look at this and what we can do to bring this area back to greatness.’”

“Beaverdale as we know it today is sold out. We get calls all the time from people that would like to come into our area,” said Boesen, president of the Beaverdale Business Coalition and owner of Boesen the Florist. “It’s an affluent area, people are not overridden with big mortgages on homes, and there’s greater amount of spendable dollars. It’s a great place to land business.”

Many businesses especially are drawn to the residents’ interest in enhancing their neighborhood through several projects.

The BBC and Main Street Initiative, both formed in the last three years, along with the BNA, have plans for a streetscape project that will beautify and unify the area with features such as pedestrian walkways, lampposts, benches and landscaping around Beaver and Urbandale Avenues. In addition, any new development will be encouraged to match the area’s distinctive brick look and more public parking will be made available. This talk alone has caused businesses to flock to the area.

In the next few years, the former site of Rice Elementary School and properties near the intersection of Beaver and Douglass Avenues will likely be developed into more residential and commercial areas as well. To support these initiatives, the community is asking the city to designate the area as a tax increment financing district, which will allow some of the money new businesses pay in property taxes to stay within the vicinity.

“It seems like there’s a lot of moving parts,” said Matt Anderson, an economic development coordinator for the city of Des Moines and a Beaverdale resident. “They’ve done a nice job of organizing themselves and are actually doing a lot of it on their own without the city’s help.”

It all started with a vision.

At the time community members feared a failing core commercial district, the BNA initiated a task force led by Joe Jongewaard to study the area. Emily Lawson, a former employee of RDG Planning and Design, also enlisted the help of Martin Shukert, firm principal and a renowned urban planner.

Shukert hosted a three-day charrette, said Lawson, which generated ideas about how the community could revitalize its commercial core. These findings, along with further community input and scientific surveying, turned into a final plan. RDG did the majority of the study as a donation, in part, Shukert said, because he was so interested in the area.

“The cohesiveness of the neighborhood is really pretty incredible,” he said. “There’s a high degree of commonality between residents and businesses. The scale of the neighborhood and intimacy of it and relationship of the business district make it a really interesting business environment as well.”

The main goal of the plan is to enhance Beaverdale’s current offerings and to attract more destination-type retail stores, restaurants and activities, which will draw visitors from throughout the region.

“The plan really speaks to development, but development from a few different angles,” said Miller. “We’re making sure we’re active and proactive about our future.”

The city of Des Moines has filed the plan with several departments that may be affected by the development. The next step will be to narrow down the conceptual plan into a detailed construction document and raise the estimated $80,000 to $120,000 needed to complete the first phase of the streetscape project.

The city may offer some funding, but major donations will likely be needed as well.

In January 2004, the city authorized Beaverdale to participate in the Main Street Iowa Initiative, under Main Street’s Urban Neighborhood Commercial District Pilot Project. A $30,000 economic development grant was awarded to help the neighborhood fund administrative costs associated with the project. The funding has encouraged the city to continue to carry out its proposal to the next level.

If the tax increment financing initiative goes through, Boesen said, it will allow a large amount of money to stay within the community and fund projects such as the streetscape improvements. The TIF request is being studied by the city’s legal department and it’s uncertain when it will be decided upon.

“[TIF] is going to save Beaverdale,” said Boesen, “and make it a very competitive landscape for businesses to do business.

“The city has given us indicators that this is the type of project TIF is meant for, and understand that it’s necessary. I have every reason to believe city leaders will work with us, but still it is in their hands.”

Rice transformation

A soccer field surrounded by vacant land stretches across an eastern portion of Beaver Avenue, marking the location where Rice Elementary once stood. Soon the nearly 5-acre site will evolve into a new kind of complex, yet to be determined, as the soccer field is replaced by one near Hoover High School.

The Des Moines School Board voted to form a review committee that will look at proposals to purchase the land on May 16. The board will consist of two representatives from the school board, two from the city and one each from the BNA, the BBC and Main Street Initiative.

“It’s up to the school district to decide,” said School Board President Phil Roeder, “but knowing that a lot of work is going into long range planning for the neighborhood, we want to make sure there’s a process to get that input.”

The RDG plan provided several options for the area, ranging from a low-maintenance park to a highly developed commercial district. Because there are already two parks nearby, it’s likely the site will become a mix of residential and commercial, which potentially will give the business district room to expand and bring more unique retailers and restaurants into the area.

“Everyone saw the empty spot and the role it could play in development,” said Boesen.

By Oct. 30, the board hopes to finalize the sale, and the school district will likely make close to quadruple what it would have made if it had sold the property when the school board was torn down.

Further down the road

The conceptual plan also suggested Boesen’s 7-acre lot, part of which holds the florist’s greenhouse, and the intersection of Beaver and Douglas as areas that could be further developed.

With all the ideas floating around and the request to be a TIF district, Boesen said, the city asked for a concrete development plan. He expects his property to be the start. He will have designs for his site later this month and will then request that the city allow the going on land to be changed from an agricultural to a commercial district.

At the Beaver-Douglas intersection, a larger retailer has knocked on the doors of owners of the 7.4-acre site to the southwest, asking to purchase the parcel. The business is rumored to be Hy-Vee Inc., but Hy-Vee, Boesen and the business owners who own parts of that property would not confirm.

Scott Dawson, owner of Beaver Mower and Equipment Repair, speculates plans for a larger retailer to come in their area will go through. But that won’t keep him from shutting his doors.

“The neighborhood is good about keeping businesses in the area,” he said. “This has been here half a century.”

“The positives will outweigh any negatives,” Boesen said. “Some people may be displaced, but [a company] can’t take people’s businesses unless they agree to it.”

Yet the rumors reflect one consequence of increased development in Beaverdale: Smaller business owners that don’t fit into the community’s vision may be pushed to the side.

A few years ago, the Salvation Army tried to locate a thrift store in the vacant Walgreens building and residents stepped up to prevent it from happening. They wanted a hardware shop or bookstore and were willing to wait until they got it.

If TIF goes through, Boesen sees the development of a larger retailer, like Hy-Vee, beneficial to the community.

“When a company like Hy-Vee is willing to come in and spend six, seven or eight million in the neighborhood,” he said, “part of the taxes would stay in the neighborhood.”

At this point, none of the plans have led to breaking ground, but Boesen is “cautiously hopeful” that work will begin in the next 12 to 18 months.

“We haven’t really set parameters of how big project will be,” said Anderson. “Nobody has really gotten to the point yet where they can put their arms around the figures.”

But already Beaverdale pride has grown even stronger as the business district swells and talk about the future abounds.

“Beaverdale is blessed with a strong neighborhood association,” said Anderson. “There’s an identity and pride that Beaverdale residents carry. It’s one of the stronger, probably better-organized, better-represented neighborhoods. [The project] is really important to the residents who live there.”