Harry Bookey and his company, BH Equities LLC, are working to transform portions of downtown Des Moines, Dubuque and Davenport, one project at a time. A year ago, Bookey and three partners led the opening of Centro, a popular restaurant in downtown Des Moines. Bookey is considering a similar venue in Davenport. He is also working with James Hubbell III on a proposal to build apartments and retail stores in downtown Des Moines. The Business Record spoke with Bookey recently about his plans for Des Moines and eastern Iowa.

Q: Word is that you’ve been traveling recently, looking for new ideas for restaurants and other cultural attractions to include in your plans. Where have you been and what have you seen?

A: We went to Prague and Italy for a while. There were a couple of things we liked. Prague offers concerts constantly, as many as 4 or 5 a day. They last about an hour, and they’re held in churches. It’s inexpensive, about $10, and they last about an hour each. We are thinking about doing something similar at the Temple [for Performing Arts.] We saw Flamenco, opera and chamber music. We saw one performance of music from Hair. I don’t know if we could duplicate that in Des Moines. We looked at some outdoor restaurant ideas.

Q: What plans are coming together for the Court Avenue project?

A: We’re worked with some people in a small focus group. There was a feeling that we need to create more of a street level atmosphere initially. We have contract on the Generations building, and we are thinking about making that into live blues and jazz club. Although this hasn’t been finalized yet, we’re still talking to the people who own the building that held Nacho Mammas. We’re thinking about developing a Latin-style restaurant. If it doesn’t go in there, then maybe we’ll put it in one of our own buildings.

Q: What’s happening in eastern Iowa?

A: We were approached by the Davenport One, the counterpart to the Greater Des Moines Partnership. They’ve been working on this building called the Redstone Building and they’ve been doing a lot of development downtown. There is a theater there similar to the Temple project that we did. They wanted us to do a restaurant on the bottom floor of the building along the lines of Centro. They knew what kind of operation we had and so we negotiated a letter of intent. The Figge Art Museum is scheduled to open in June. There’s also a museum dedicated to river music. It’s really a neat place. In addition to our restaurant, there’s space for coffee and a South Union sandwich shop. Then they have this beautiful outdoor area to the east. In Dubuque, I visited with their development person. As a result, I feel there’s a good opportunity for housing in the main street area. We selected a couple of sites.