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Most people saw just an ordinary farm field on their way out of Indianola. Denis Frischmeyer and Kevin Halterman saw the future.

Last week, Frischmeyer, owner of Downing Construction Inc., and Halterman, president of Peoples Bank in Indianola, gathered with their development partners and community leaders in unveiling their vision for the city’s first major mixed-use development, Summercrest Hills.

Located on a 160-acre parcel at the northwest corner of the intersection of U.S. Highway 65/69 and Hillcrest Avenue, the project is a joint venture of Downing Construction and West Des Moines-based Three-Sixty Group. The development’s master plan calls for a wide-ranging blend of retail and commercial spaces, technology and office parks, a residential neighborhood, recreational spaces and possibly even a school or higher education facility, interconnected by trails and buffered by green spaces.

“The whole premise of the project was: What can we do to make Indianola a better place?” Frischmeyer said. “We looked at this parcel and we realized that if Indianola is going to grow, this is the area that’s going to have to grow, and this is the direction we’re going to grow because everything’s migrating to Des Moines. It just seemed like a logical place for Indianola to move forward.”

It’s the first time the Indianola-based construction company has taken on a major mixed-used development project. “That’s why Three-Sixty was such a valuable component of the whole equation,” Frischmeyer said.

Three-Sixty Group was formed in May 2008 by Randy Bray, a former bank CEO who went on to become a project designer. Bray launched the firm in May 2008 with Roger Langpaul and Tim Walpole, who most recently were with Ladco Development Inc. as that company’s senior asset manager and project development manager, respectively.

“This type of project fits our reason for starting (Three-Sixty),” Walpole said. “We are providing the development management services, but partnering with Downing Construction for construction management versus having both in-house. That was always one of our core values, the ability to be flexible and to work in projects in different roles.”

Downing does not intend to be the sole building contractor for the development, Frischmeyer said.

“If the people we recruit to town need a builder, certainly we’ll try to accommodate their needs,” he said. “But the whole development is really open to any builders, both locally and outside of the Indianola area.”

The project will take advantage of the land’s natural beauty and features as much as possible, Bray said during the unveiling ceremony last week at the site.

“On a (sunny summer) day like this, we can envision the trails that will connect with the Summerset Trail (bicycle and walking trail to the east),” he said. “We can envision ponds; we can envision civic plazas where people will gather, whether it’s for small festivals, arts fairs, jazz concerts or just to hang out. We want to create friendly places for people to come together and create a sense of community within this community.”

Other contributors to the Summercrest Hills project include William J. Ludwig & Associates Ltd. in Clive, which developed the master plan, and Snyder & Associates Inc., which did the civil engineering work.

The first project within the development breaks ground this week: Vintage Hills Retirement Community. The senior living facility will feature a town center with a bank, beauty shop, post office, general store, theater and other amenities. The first phase will include 46 assisted living units and 20 memory-care units.

“Hopefully, directly following that will be our independent phase, which will be 45 units of independent (living) units,” said Jeff Ewing, president of Ewing Land Development and Services of Pella, which has built similar senior campuses in Pella, Newton and Waukee.

“We have a niche that we think is very beneficial,” Ewing said. “There is no endowment or buy-in fee up front (for residents); it’s strictly a market-rate facility. It’s been very successful for us.”

Bray said he and his partners are negotiating with a variety of potential commercial tenants for the development, and he expects to be able to announce the first major retail client in September.

One of the unique features of the development is its access to both redundant electrical power and fiber-optic lines, which makes it an attractive option for a technology park, Walpole said. “Very few locations have that in one site,” he said.

The area to be developed is half-again as big as the 95-acre Village of Ponderosa, but not quite as large as Jordan Creek’s 200 acres, so it’s definitely a long-term project, Bray said.

“A 160-acre project in any market, but particularly in this market, isn’t developed in 12 months or 24 months,” he said. “We’d love it if it were, and if that happens we’ll be ready for it and able to do it, but practically that will not happen. It’s a five- to seven- to 10-year project before this is fully built out.”

Though some existing retailers in Indianola have expressed concern about the project potentially taking business away from them, the added commercial activity will be entirely positive for the retail community, said Myles Kappelman, executive director of the Indianola Development Association.

“Warren County has the largest outflow of retail dollars of any county in the state,” he said. “If we can keep some of the dollars here, they’ll circulate in the community, and those dollars will find their way into other cash registers of businesses throughout the community.”

The development deal hinged upon gaining the cooperation of landowner Kathleen Picken, who acknowledged that her family had misgivings about selling the land, which her cousins still farm.

“Obviously, I believe in the family farm, and that is why I’m investing in more farmland for (my cousins) Steve and Joe to farm and work, in a way to take the place of this piece, which is an excellent piece of farmland,” she said. “We were loath to give it up, which is another reason we appreciate the plans that have gone into this.”

Picken, who grew up in Chicago, said she appreciates the mixture of business, recreational, educational and cultural facilities planned for the development.

“We lived in our neighborhood some 50 years,” she said. “You can walk and get a bottle of milk or a deli sandwich, or you can even walk to work. We would like the people in Des Moines to think that Indianola would be a great place to live, because it feels like home.”