The long struggle over building apartments and condominiums in the Court Avenue district actually seems to be over. The Des Moines City Council approved the plan of Jim Hubbell and Harry Bookey last week, and only one tax-credit hurdle remains (although it seems like we’ve said that a few times before).

But don’t worry about boredom setting in – the battle over the vacant spot on Court between Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue still has a way to go.

There’s lots of interest in the site, according to acting city manager Rick Clark, and last week, the council discussed the idea of issuing a “request for interest” to find out what ideas are floating around. Sounds innocuous enough, but not everybody saw it that way.

Councilman Archie Brooks thought it seemed like an odd route to take, considering that he doesn’t recall that tactic ever being used in his 26 years on the council. “Knowing that for the last year they’ve been trying to get this in through the back door, it makes me suspicious,” he said.

And Tom Vlassis made a point of announcing that he’ll vote against any hotel-only plan.

Polk County is still studying the need for another downtown hotel, Brooks said, so let’s wait for those results (which are still several weeks away). But no matter what that report says, it sounds as if he’ll remain opposed to a new hotel. He’s worried about the effect on existing hotels (his employer, Ruan Cos., operates the Des Moines Marriott) and after all of this bickering about apartments and condos on Court, he’s in no mood to put city money into anybody’s hotel project.

Quad Cities entrepreneur and U.S. House of Representatives candidate Mike Whalen has tried to put together a hotel plan for the site, with the support of Councilwoman Christine Hensley. “He wanted close to $5 million in subsidies,” Brooks said.

Brooks wasn’t the only one taken aback by the RFI concept. Attorney Bill Lillis was at the council meeting representing developers who wanted to propose an upscale combination of a hotel, housing and retail for the site. Instead, they find themselves waiting on the sidelines while the RFI goes through a 30-day cycle, to be followed by the more traditional “request for proposal” process, which could take another two months.

In the meantime, Chris Coleman is warning that “it’s not ethical for any of us on the council to be talking individually to developers without a game plan for the entire council.”

Good advice.