RSM US LLP, the accounting, tax and consulting firm that employs about 300 people in Capital Square, will move to the newly developed space in the former federal courthouse annex building, now called Riverview, in fall 2026, said Doug Roozeboom, partner and office leader for the firm.

RSM will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year, having started in Cedar Rapids. It has been located on the sixth floor of Capital Square for more than 40 years.

Roozeboom said RSM has grown to be the fifth largest accounting firm in the country, primarily serving companies with between $200 million and $500 million in annual revenue.

He said RSM needs to update its space if it wants to continue to attract and retain top talent.

“It’s important to me that we keep that recruiting strong,” Roozeboom said. “When recruits and students come in they don’t want to see a dump. They want to work in a nice, fresh space.”

He said while Capital Square is not “a dump” it has deteriorated over the years. Roozeboom classified it as C-minus space because of the loss of retail and the number of homeless people who camp out in the skywalk and around Cowles Commons.

He said being a CPA firm with employees who work late hours, particularly during busy season, one of the things he’s thinking about is safety.

“This side of the skywalk is getting tougher,” Roozeboom said.

Roozeboom said the move is also driven by a desire to be in a space that’s more conducive to collaboration.

RSM occupies a little over 50,000 square feet in Capital Square. While the firm takes up most of the building’s sixth floor, the atrium in the middle cuts up the space, hindering his team’s ability to collaborate, Roozeboom said.

“This building has this huge hole in the middle of it, the atrium, and because of that it’s very inefficient and we are really spread out over a huge footprint,” he said. “It’s not just collaborative at all.”

So when Roozeboom began the search for new office space, collaboration was at the top of his list.

“We need to be intentional and we need to be together,” he said. “We need to talk to each other and be collaborative, and this building doesn’t have that.”

The search began in August 2024.

Working with RSM’s national real estate team and a local broker, he looked at space in 801 Grand, the downtown Wells Fargo buildings and the Nationwide building.

“I had written off Riverview because there wasn’t any parking,” Roozeboom said.

But then things changed.

The initial information he was given about Riverview was that it only had on-street parking. But then he learned that the building’s owner and developer Doug Wells had decided to build a parking garage nearby to serve the building’s tenants.

“That changed everything,” Roozeboom said.

Roozeboom set up an appointment to tour the Riverview building and he liked what he saw.

RSM will occupy the entire fourth floor and more than half of the third floor, he said.

“It is one blank space,” Roozeboom said. “It’s an open canvas with tall ceilings. The fourth-floor balcony that looks over downtown Des Moines is a game-changer for me.”

The balcony will be a great space for staff to work outside, or for company events and other activities, he said.

“It’s just so nice to have some outdoor space,” Roozeboom said.

Besides providing more space for collaboration and training, other amenities that are planned for Riverview are attractive, too, he said.

Wells, the building’s owner and officer with Riverview DSM LLC, is remodeling the 109,000-square-foot building for a mix of commercial and office space.

In September 2024, he said the ground floor would include space for restaurants, a gym and a common lobby area. The upper three stories would be for office space.

Repeated attempts to reach Wells for this story were unsuccessful.

Roozeboom said the on-site gym with private showers, storage for bicycles, and nearby restaurants are attractive not only to his employees but other tenants who move into the building.

Roozeboom said the combination of providing new, more collaborative space, the amenities the building will offer and its proximity to the developing Market District and nearby ICON Water Trails sites, will help solidify the firm’s recruitment efforts.

“It’s critically important, and that’s why I’m adamant that we leave Capital Square,” he said. “It’s a fine space, but when I go to other RSM offices or the big four [national accounting firm offices] we certainly don’t have the space we need to be a dominant firm in Des Moines.”

The goal is to move from Capital Square and into the new offices in September 2026.

No furniture or accessories will go to the Riverview offices, Roozeboom said.

“It will be all new desks, new chairs, so really it’s just pack up your computers and personal belongings and walk over to the new building,” he said.

Roozeboom said it’s exciting to be able to take the firm to the next level with the new space.

Although a little less space than it currently has, the 43,000 square feet it will occupy in Riverview will be more efficient for his team, he said.

And being an anchor tenant in the building, RSM will have a huge sign on its southwest corner, the only tenant with signage on that side of the building, he said.

Roozeboom hopes that the sign will help carve the company’s legacy in downtown Des Moines, similar to the Travelers umbrella on the Insurance Exchange building at Fifth Street and Grand Avenue.

“We’re hoping that the building becomes known as the RSM building and leave a legacy where people refer to it as the RSM building. That would be the goal,” he said.