For years, a dilapidated mobile home park sat on a nearly 2-acre site, fronting both East Park and Indianola avenues on Des Moines’ south side.

The park was overrun with weeds, scrub trees and bushes. The homes had roofs that leaked and siding with patches to cover gaping holes. City officials considered the park an eyesore and unsafe place in which to live.

“That trailer court had been an eyesore for years – long before I was elected to the council,” said Joe Gatto, a Des Moines city council member who represents the fourth ward that includes much of the city’s south side. “It only got worse as the years went by.”

This month, work is being completed on Park Indy, a $9.2-million multifamily development on the site of the former mobile home park. Park Indy includes 40 one- and two-bedroom apartments spread over four two-story buildings that resemble row houses. Rent for a one-bedroom unit begins at $1,125 a month.

Before development of Park Indy began, however, the mobile home park’s residents were relocated.

In July 2022, Neighborhood Dsevelopment Corp. acquired the property. Partnering with Polk County and Family & Youth Services, the group moved the park’s residents either to apartments or other mobile home parks. The process took about a year to complete, said Sadie Trytten, executive director of Neighborhood Development, a nonprofit group formed in 1999 to help spark redevelopment in neighborhoods.  

“We wanted to make sure those residents had safe, affordable places to live,” Trytten said.
Neighborhood Development partnered with DEV Partners, a Columbus, Ohio-based developer, on redeveloping the parcel.

Danny Heggen, a partner and chief financial officer for DEV Partners, said Park Indy fills a need in the rental market for people who don’t want to live in apartment complexes but either can’t afford or don’t want to live in a single-family house.

“We’re in a world now where there’s no longer first-time home buyers but first-time home renters,” Heggen said. “We’re targeting people who are moving out of larger apartment complexes into small rental buildings. … Some of these people may not want to mow yards or take care of all the different things you have to take care of with a house.

“They want to live in locations where they can walk to the grocery, ride their bike to a nearby trail or get a ride to downtown where there’s a lot of activity.”

Park Indy is 5 minutes from the ICON Water Trail system, Gray’s Lake and the East Village district that includes a lot of night life activities.

“The product is one that we don’t have a lot of on the south side,” Gatto said. “It is meeting a housing need and if it does well, I think it’s something we can consider for some other blighted areas.”

Park Indy’s four buildings were built efficiently, Heggen said. The buildings do not include common corridors or elevators. “In most apartment buildings, 20 to 25% of the square footage is nonrentable,” he said. “Ours has 8 to 10% of nonrentable square footage because we have very little common area.”

Most of Park Indy’s first-level tenants will be able to access their apartment from a door that leads outside. A few tenants will walk into a small common entryway that leads to their apartments’ front doors and also includes stairs to the second level.

The project received financial help from the state of Iowa through its workforce housing tax credits (the project received $729,000) and a $300,000 grant from the city of Des Moines. Park Indy is also taking part in Des Moines’ middle-density abatement program.

DEV Partners has developed similar projects in other parts of Iowa, Heggen said. A middle-density project in Mason City was fully leased within three months of opening. A project in Fort Dodge also is doing well, he said. The development firm is also nearing completion of a row house-like project at 3109 Forest Ave. in Des Moines.

DEV Partners plans to start a project in Creston that is similar to Park Indy. The group also is planning a 24-unit project at Vale and Southeast Seventh streets, just east of the Des Moines River.