Hubbell planning nine- to 10-story residential tower for Riverfront Y site

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Hubbell Realty Co. and city of Des Moines planners and economic development experts are working their way, slowly, toward a design for the former site of the Riverfront YMCA that will include a nine- to 10-story tower, sans a hotel and other elements that were briefly under consideration.


Also gone are plans to line the periphery of the site at Second Avenue and Locust Street with townhomes, said Hubbell President and CEO Rick Tollakson.
 
Though Tollakson has said the development of a luxury high-rise at the Riverfront Y site is his “dream” project, preliminary plans submitted in May with an application for state of Iowa tax credits outlined a $30 million project that included a five-story structure.

In a number of meetings with city representatives, it has been clear that city planners share his dream for a more costly high-rise structure.

Part of the negotiations with the city will center on a development agreement. Officials have said that at one point Hubbell sought 25 years of tax relief. However, Tollakson said that as with a final details for the structure, the details of a development agreement will emerge after months of meetings and will be vetted by the city’s Urban Design Review Board.


Hubbell has emerged as the only viable candidate to redevelop the site, and Tollakson said he was optimistic the company would prevail with a development that remains sketchy. There is little doubt that a high-rise tower, long sought by city officials and others who regard the site as the prize of downtown development opportunities, will remain part of the plan.


Hubbell has also won an extension for a purchase agreement that was to expire Jan. 29 to buy the site from the YMCA of Greater Des Moines. The agreement has been extended to September, and Tollakson said it will take several months to hammer out the final details, including a development agreement with the city,


“We believe we’re in a position to get this accomplished,” Tollakson said.


The Hubbell development team was busy again Monday working on a plan for the structure, which is bound to include a restaurant and other commercial components. Tollakson said he did not know whether for-sale condominiums would be included in the residential plans.


“A lot of people have contacted me and expressed interest in condominiums, but there’s no one signing on the dotted line,” he said.


Plans still call for a U-shaped structure that would open to the Des Moines River.


Although the possibility of including a mix of hotel rooms has been discussed, it isn’t a viable option for the site, given that Polk County will demand a payback for the million-dollar-plus cost of demolishing the Riverfront Y.


That condition is part of a complicated deal that arose from a downtown land swap in which the former Polk County Convention Complex was sold to the YMCA, the former J.C. Penney Co. Inc. building was sold to Polk County and Des Moines Redevelopment Co. bought the site at Fifth Avenue and Park Street for a convention center hotel, and later sold the site to Polk County.


Hubbell’s development of the Riverfront Y site will be a homecoming of sorts for the company. The Riverfront Y was built atop the ruins of the Des Moines Coliseum, a venue that hosted presidents and celebrities from 1909 until 1949, when it burned to the ground. F.M. Hubbell owned the ground where the coliseum was built, according to a variety of published sources.


Tollakson noted that crews apparently have unearthed sections of the building’s foundation. They won’t be an impediment to development of a high-rise, he noted.