Local investors are attempting to purchase the historic Griffin Building in downtown and continue with development plans that entail apartments, including affordable units, and commercial office and retail uses.

Renovation of the six-story building at 319 Seventh St. had appeared to be stalled after it was purchased in 2016 by a Quad Cities redevelopment firm from a partnership led by Des Moines developer and property manager Jim Conlin.

However, an investment group led by Abe Wolf and Ron Daniels, working with developers Tim Rypma, Paul Cownie and Jeremy Cortright, hopes to buy the building and complete a renovation, Rypma said.

According to a staff report to the Des Moines City Council, the $12.4 million project could begin in the fall.

The Griffin Building was the location of a Katz Drug Store that refused to serve ice cream to Edna Griffin, her then 1-year-old daughter and two others because of their race. The year was 1948 and the case led to a landmark anti-discrimination ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court.

The structure originally was called the Flynn Building when it was completed in 1885 as the home of Peoples’ Savings Bank, a financial institution associated with Martin Flynn, the railroad builder and farmer whose holdings included what is now Living History Farms in Urbandale. The original bank building was a modest structure that was enlarged in the early 1900s by Flynn’s son.

Conlin’s group bought the building in 1991. It was renamed the Edna M. Griffin Building in 1998, the 50th anniversary of her encounter at Katz Drug and the successful efforts to change the operation’s discriminatory practices.