Carbon 550 apartments to fill a small footprint near Wellmark YMCA
BPC Staff Jul 15, 2016 | 3:34 pm
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Submitted by Shiffler Associates
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Hubbell Realty Co. and Shiffler Associates Architects have designed a long, narrow apartment complex that will fit a skinny lot immediately north of the Wellmark YMCA and fronting Watson Powell Jr. Parkway.
The estimated $8.9 million project will have up to 50 apartments, all facing west to provide views of downtown and accessible via hallways that will run along the east side of the five-story building.
This is a project with a purpose, intended to provide funds from the purchase of the lot that will be used by the YMCA of Greater Des Moines to defray the cost of a swimming pool that will be due south of the Hubbell apartments, called Carbon 550. Hubbell President and CEO Rick Tollakson is a member of the YMCA board and will take the role of chairman later this summer.
Tollakson said in May that Hubbell will pay about $1 million for the lot.
In another effort to provide cash for completion of the $9 million to $10 million pool, Knapp Properties Inc. paid $725,367 for a nine-acre parcel in Grimes that it had donated to the YMCA in 2008.
Hubbell will present plans for Carbon 550 during the July 19 meeting of the Des Moines Urban Design Review Board. The company has been awarded $914,410 in state of Iowa workforce housing tax credits for the project and is expected to take advantage of a 10-year, 100 percent abatement of property taxes, an incentive that is available to any developer of residential properties in the downtown area.
Carbon 550 will will include a heated walkout basement level for indoor parking, with four stories of market-rate apartment units, according to a summary of the project. Access will be provided along a drive approach on Sixth Avenue to indoor parking, trash and other utility services that will be located on the south side of the building.
Apartments will have balconies facing west, north and south. The hallways have been located along the east side of the building so that residents will not be looking out on the backside of the Wellmark YMCA, according to the report.
The apartment building will fill most of the site, leaving a small amount of space between Carbon 550 and the Wellmark YMCA for an alleyway park and potential dog park.
Hubbell estimates an 18-month construction schedule and would like to start work on the project as soon as possible in 2017.
Hubbell and the city of Des Moines continue to work out plans for the future of the former Riverfront YMCA site on Locust Street overlooking the Des Moines River.
Meanwhile, the company has sold eight lots in an area called The Banks in its Bridge District development east of the river and has conducted at least one focus group to determine preferences for a possible residential build-out of the 75-acre Norfolk Southern Railway property that stretches north from the Raccoon River to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.