Commercial development No. 1 priority for Polk City

Michael Crumb Aug 28, 2024 | 6:00 am
4 min read time
858 wordsAll Latest News, Real Estate and DevelopmentPolk City is prioritizing bringing more commercial development to the community to meet the needs of its growing population and to help close the gap that exists between its commercial and residential valuations, city leaders said.

“Of everything we have going on in the community, establishing more commercial development is the highest priority of the council right now,” City Manager Chelsea Huisman said. ‘“They want more development. They want more time focused on bringing in commercial development.”
The northern Polk County community’s population is about 6,500 people, up about 1,000 from 2020. The city’s property tax valuations are widely split, with about 90% of its taxes coming from residential and about 10% from commercial, said Huisman, who has been Polk City manager for about five years.
Most cities’ valuations are divided more equally and are closer to a 50/50 split, she said.
“Adding those amenities for our residents, they don’t necessarily want to drive to Grimes or Ankeny every time they need something, but also commercial development pays higher taxes, and that reduces the burden on our residential homeowners,” Huisman said.
She said a larger commercial base is needed not only to serve the increasing number of residents who choose to live in Polk City but also for the number of people who visit the community and its nearby recreational opportunities, such as Saylorville Lake and its campgrounds and Big Creek State Park.
“Polk City is unique in that we’re part of the Des Moines metro, but we’re on the outskirts of the metro, and we have a lot of surrounding recreational opportunities and amenities around Polk City,” she said. “[There are] about 2.2 million people who come to Polk City annually … so it’s a big tourist attraction.”
“And people want to build their houses next to those amenities, and the value of their homes continues to increase because of those reasons,” Huisman said.

One challenge in bringing more commercial to the city is its high median home prices, which Huisman said is among the highest in the state. The median home price in Polk City is $450,000.
“Not everybody can afford to live here,” Huisman said. “It goes hand in hand with one of our challenges with commercial development because business owners are hesitant to establish here because of how hard it is to get workers to work here. We don’t have a lot of affordable housing available in Polk City.”
Another challenge, Huisman said, is that Polk City hasn’t in the past had many areas identified for commercial development.
“So, the council has been pretty proactive in looking at our land use plan and identifying areas where we could add additional commercial,” she said.
As a result of higher traffic volumes on Third Street and Bridge Road, those areas have been targeted as commercial corridors in the city’s land use plan, Huisman said. That has prompted some new development in recent years, including a new Ace Hardware store and a new retail strip center.
Priorities for future commercial growth are retail and restaurants, she said.
“That’s what we hear a lot from our residents,” Huisman said about priorities listed by the city’s residents.
There’s also been interest in bringing a pharmacy to town, she said.
Another area identified for commercial growth is 40 acres on 44th Street north of town. Industrial development has also been identified as a need in Polk City, Huisman said.
While the city prioritizes commercial development, its housing development is burgeoning.
Huisman said 150 single-family home lots are being developed on Northside Drive, with another 220 single-family homes being proposed on East Vista Lake Avenue on the city’s north side. There are another 200 single-family homes proposed in a development north of the Tournament Club of Iowa golf course, and another 200 proposed near Iowa Highway 415 and 44th Street.
All the developments have approved plats with homes expected to go up this winter in the Northside Drive development, with construction beginning next spring and summer in the others, Huisman said.
The city has also built a new city hall, which it moved into in July, with plans to build a new police station next door on an adjacent lot where dilapidated homes were razed.
Residents will also have the opportunity in November to vote on a bond issue for up to $10 million to help build a recreational complex consisting of soccer and baseball fields and other amenities. There are also plans to connect the Neal Smith Trail to the High Trestle Trail, with the connection scheduled to be complete by December 2026.
Huisman said all the growth that’s planned is a sign that people want to live in Polk City, visit the nearby amenities and be involved in the North Polk School District. And she believes that with that growth, commercial development will follow.
“I think we’re relatively patient,” she said. “We know those things will come. Grimes is a really good example. You’re seeing the commercial development in Grimes just booming right now. Yeah, the rooftops come first, then the other things come second. We know it will come.”

Michael Crumb
Michael Crumb is a senior staff writer at Business Record. He covers real estate and development and transportation.