The redevelopment of former Maytag buildings in Newton is underway, with two buildings already renovated and a second phase of redevelopment beginning.

The project, by Christensen Development, transformed two factory buildings, known as buildings 16 and 50 on the Maytag campus, into 78 market-rate apartments, and was finished and opened in early January, said Jake Christensen, president of Christensen Development.

The second phase is the redevelopment of two more buildings into 49 units that will be a combination of studio and one-bedroom apartments, with some of those units being used as an extended stay hotel room in an Airbnb format, he said.

“But predominantly it’s an apartment building with a small component of an extended stay hotel operation,” Christensen said.

The first two buildings included about 85,000 square feet of space, while the buildings in the second phase of the project are a total of about 55,000 square feet, Christensen said.

He said phase two should be complete and the apartments open by August.

Christensen Development acquired the former Maytag buildings in 2023. Work on phase one began last year, and Christensen expects a similar timeframe for completion of phase two of the project. So far, some interior demolition has been done, and it should take 6½ to seven months to complete, he said.

The buildings were primarily used by Maytag for research and development and some office space before the company shut down in 2007.

Maytag was purchased by Whirlpool in 2006; a year later, Whirlpool shuttered the Maytag facilities, moving jobs to Mexico and to other parts of the United States. The former corporate campus had two other owners before the property was donated to Des Moines Area Community College in 2016.

“The buildings that we are doing have been very well cared for by Maytag and the subsequent owners, most recently DMACC — they’ve all been very good stewards of the building,” Christensen said.

Because of that, there haven’t been any significant challenges, he said.

“The bigger challenge in this project is the difficulty of financing complex projects in a small market like Newton,” Christensen said. “So, from a technical execution of the historic tax credit and other layers of gap financing that are involved it’s been a technically difficult project to execute. So that has been the challenge, not so much the physical makeup of the buildings.”

Beal Derkenne Construction is doing the redevelopment work and Slingshot Architecture did the design work on the project, which received $14 million from the state’s Iowa Reinvestment District program.

According to state documents, the state assistance received final approval in March 2023 for adapting existing facilities from Maytag’s departure, including apartments, a boutique hotel, event space and green space, as well as downtown improvements and trail connections. The plan proposes a capital investment of nearly $48 million.

The project also received state and federal historic tax credits, a workforce housing grant, an Iowa Brownfield tax credit, and a real estate tax abatement from the city of Newton.

Christensen said it’s important to preserve the history of the buildings and “the iconic nature of that facility and recognize the importance it had to Newton for decades.”

“And then, like most smaller communities, there’s a real housing need,” Christensen said.
He said there is a wait list of 110 people for the 78 units that opened in January.

“So, there’s several layers to it,” Christensen said. “It’s a sense of community and sense of rebuilding after the loss of Maytag and then just the additional housing that is needed.”

An open house for the first buildings drew people who had worked in the buildings or had family that worked in the buildings when they were owned by Maytag.

“There were a lot of smiles and camaraderie around seeing the buildings repurposed and it was rewarding to get to watch,” Christensen said. “They’ve worked hard. Since they lost Maytag the community’s worked hard and you could see that in everybody’s reactions to the buildings.”