Bondurant Mayor Marla McCoid has a “hit list” of things she wants to accomplish in her first term.

Eliminating cheaply built buildings and ditches might be her first priority; a close second is to foster commercial growth in the city.

Since becoming mayor this year, the former Urbandale resident has been working with city leaders and developers on a list of projects designed to increase Bondurant’s business offerings, while managing rapid residential growth.

With a population close to 3,000, according to a special census completed this year – that’s a 60 percent increase since 2000 – city leaders understand that a commercial and industrial base is vital to boosting Bondurant’s tax base and job opportunities. But even though McCoid’s administration is taking a pro-growth stance, officials still want to set zoning standards and provide infrastructure that will allow the city to grow well.

“To me it doesn’t feel like this crazy competition to go out and play Monopoly,” McCoid said. “I want to make sure that the future of the community is planned right so that it grows well. I have seen communities that, in my opinion, have grown too fast, and it feels like organized chaos.”

Bondurant’s future has been compared to Waukee’s current situation, and even City Administrator Mark Arentsen, former city administrator for Waukee, describes his new position as rewinding his life five years. “The issues are very similar,” he said, especially because both cities are located between two major suburbs (Waukee between Clive and West Des Moines; Bondurant between Altoona and Ankeny).

From 2000 to 2004, Waukee’s population grew by about 58 percent, and from 2000 to 2006, Bondurant grew by roughly the same percentage. Waukee is projected to grow 57 percent from 2004 to 2010, while Bondurant has nearly 1,000 lots platted for development, which could add another 2,000 to 3,000 people.

Bondurant’s population of 2,942 is still far short of Waukee’s 8,132, but Bondurant is at a point where its population base could be more appealing to service-based retailers than ever before. And more businesses will likely fuel more residential growth.

Commercial growth in Bondurant is important to the city’s economy as well as that of Polk County, which has lost property tax revenues due to development in neighboring Warren and Dallas counties.

During a May 2003 strategic planning retreat, Tom Hockensmith, the supervisor representing Polk County’s 3rd District, which includes Bondurant, said the supervisors decided balance growth was their number one priority and that the county needed to invest in development to the east of Des Moines in order to balance growth to the west. The county’s comprehensive land-use plan, which came out earlier this year, reflects this priority by identifying areas of potential growth in Altoona, Bondurant and Pleasant Hill.

“We feel it’s really important that the core of our metro area should be Des Moines,” Hockensmith said. “As the growth pattern continues to shift west, the metro’s epicenter moves with it. I think for the vitality of Des Moines we need to encourage and adopt policies for opportunities to grow eastern Polk County.”



Commercial growth

McCoid, who juggles her time between being mayor, practicing law, running the First Street Café, and being a mother and wife, has started the revitalization of Bondurant’s Main Street herself by investing in and renovating a building with her husband, Craig. Since opening this summer, the building has already filled with tenants, including the café, her and her husband’s offices, a dance studio and an esthetician’s office.

“A lot of people say that you can gauge the pulse of what’s happening in town by looking first at Main Street,” she said, “so to have something here that’s thriving instead of falling apart is important to us.”

Bondurant has 88 businesses, according to the Iowa Department of Revenue. Iowa State University’s office of social and economic trend analysis found that in 2005, those businesses had total retail sales of $9.63 million, which was a 5 percent increase from the year before. Meanwhile, Polk County’s retail sales decreased by 0.5 percent and sales statewide decreased by 0.3 percent. However, Bondurant’s per capita retail sales dropped 2.6 percent to $4,479, which was greater than the county and state decrease, suggesting that business growth is not keeping pace with residential growth.

Many residents see a need for service retailers, including a grocery store, pharmacy, dentist and 24-hour gym.

Dennis Tellerud, owner of the Wooden Nickel Bar & Grill, said more businesses, especially restaurants and bars, would boost his sales because it would attract more people to the area.

Allen Ihde, who served as Bondurant’s mayor for 20 years before losing to McCoid in the last election, tried to attract a SuperValu or Fareway grocery store to Bondurant, but the chains told him the city didn’t have enough people. Now Bondurant may have enough rooftops, but it has taken a while to find enough land for commercial development.

For about two years, Mike Adams Jr., owner of Adams Properties Inc. and a city council member, has been trying to rezone a 17-acre parcel he owns along U.S. Highway 65 to commercial. The change finally went through this fall. Now he is working on putting together a marketing study to see if opening a grocery store in Bondurant is feasible. Although he believes the study will cost around $25,000, he thinks it will settle the decade-long debate about whether the city can support a supermarket.

“We’ve got virtually no commercial in Bondurant of any size,” he sad, “so we have an unproven market. We’ve got to take extra steps in order to lure a grocery store.”

Another seven acres of his land will probably become a strip mall, which would offer potential businesses more choices. Adams said he has had to turn down several businesses that wanted to open in Bondurant, because there was nowhere for them to go. The hair stylist next to Adams’ office, for example, would like to have his space in order to expand, because there’s no other place for the owner to go.

In addition to service-based industries, Bondurant leaders would also like to see more industrial development, which would create more local jobs. The majority of residents work in Des Moines or its other suburbs, which leaves the city without a consumer base during the day.

Perfect Acres LLC is developing a 107-acre industrial park across from Lake Petoka, and Pennsylvania-based 84 Lumber is expected to open a warehouse store on a 20-acre site next year. Bill Elson, an investor in the industrial park project and a financial planner at Spectrum Financial Services in Bondurant, believes the city’s location on a railroad spur, which connects to the Union Pacific mainline, and near two major interstate highways makes it an ideal location for more industrial development, such as a biodiesel or ethanol plant.



Reasons for growth

After working on several residential developments in Bondurant, Adams started focusing on commercial development, especially when the housing market began to slow.

“Commercial growth,” he said, “goes about half the speed of residential and probably is three times the cost.

“I think we could have gotten into trouble like Waukee did,” he said, “but current interest rates killed the construction industry. … We’re doing maybe 25 percent of the [residential] work that we did a year ago. That’s why a lot of larger builders and developers are looking at different avenues, primarily commercial.”

City leaders attribute Bondurant’s residential boom to its strong school system, which they say offers the same programs as larger districts, but with smaller class sizes. Since Craig Cochran became the district’s superintendent nine years ago, the district has grown by about 250 students to 1,150 and DLR Architects, which is developing plans for the district’s new school, projects that the Bondurant-Farrar Community School District will have 1,800 students in five years.

This growth has put a strain on the district’s two schools, forcing it to bring in mobile classrooms and place televisions in the cafeteria during high school basketball games, because the gym is overcrowded.

The district recently purchased 50 acres just outside Bondurant’s city limits to build an additional school, which will likely house grades nine through 12, but Cochran said because the school district does not have a strong tax base, the new building will have to be a “very economical structure” with an educational wing and a gymnasium that seats around 1,300.

Cochran believes more businesses would provide a large enough tax base to help the district do more expansion in the future. In addition, he said businesses become involved with fund-raisers and programs that benefit the district.

The city is fostering growth through tax abatements. Commercial businesses are eligible to receive a 100 percent tax exemption on the actual value added by any improvements for three years or a graduated program of six years; residential development is eligible to receive an 80 percent exemption for three years or a graduated program of five years. Tax increment financing might also be available, and McCoid said land is still much cheaper in Bondurant than in Des Moines or the larger suburbs.

Cochran said tax abatement is a “two-edged sword.” It helps attract businesses, but delays the increase in tax receipts for the city.

Bondurant Development Inc., a local group composed of about 12 people who meet once a month, also has assisted commercial development. The group helped Iowa Wholesale Nursery buy land on the northeast side of town and started a revolving loan fund that attracted Imperial RV Center.

The group would like to do more, said Steve Hall, its president, but it doesn’t have “the large-dollar investors or developers that can fund some things we would like to do.”

BDI also started the Bondurant Chamber of Commerce last year, which consists of 82 members from businesses in Bondurant and surrounding towns. The group hosts networking events, has compiled a small directory of businesses, puts out a quarterly newsletter and is active in the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

“I think it has given businesses a place to go to get the world out to buy locally,” said chamber President Deb Norton. “A lot of people that live in Bondurant maybe work in Des Moines and don’t know about businesses in Bondurant unless they have a storefront on Main Street.”



Road blocks

Bondurant’s location near booming Altoona and Ankeny raises questions about whether the city will ever be able to attract larger retailers.

“Most people either work in Ankeny or Altoona,” said Ihde, “and it’s just as easy to stop in those communities as they come home.”

The city also is working on some major zoning and infrastructure changes that need to happen before commercial growth can take off.

McCoid said her administration is looking into how it can revamp the city’s commercial building codes to require developers to achieve a higher standard of construction than before.

“I don’t want to see one more pole building. I think it’s just ridiculous,” McCoid said. “People think that they’re going to put up a building and they put up a tin shed. That doesn’t rise to the level of the quality of construction that the constituents of this community deserve.”

Mike Adams — who claims “there is no such thing as too much commercial growth” — agrees that there is such a thing as irresponsible growth. He says that requiring contractors to construct higher-quality buildings will ensure that if Bondurant’s growth skyrockets, it will be done well. Adams plans to work with an architecture firm to design his strip mall.

The city also is struggling to update and expand roads, water lines and sewer lines, which might discourage some developers from coming in because of the high cost to add those necessities.

Bondurant’s special census will give the city about $250,000 in road aid before the next census in 2010, and Adams has land set aside on his 17 acres for a future water tower, both of which will help in the future.

The city has had a more difficult time keeping up with sewer needs. The Des Moines Waste Reclamation Authority’s facility is operating at only 10 percent capacity, but Bondurant is not scheduled to hook up to it until 2012. The town can hook up earlier if it can raise the $16 million for the project, which is “eightfold our annual budget,” McCoid said.

The city has made enough improvements to fix its problems in the immediate future with the help of Polk County’s revolving loan fund, which Hockensmith started when Altoona paid $3.2 million to hook up to the WRA. Still, McCoid believes Bondurant will need to hook up to the WRA before its designated date.



Limits to growth

Several Bondurant residents would like to see Bondurant grow to about double its size and stop. Some worry that growth at a more aggressive pace would create major issues, such as overcrowding in its schools, as well as change the city’s small-town atmosphere.

“I don’t think we ever want to be an Altoona or Ankeny,” Ihde said. He suggested that the city could control growth by cutting back on tax abatement, but even doing that would not guarantee that the city’s expansion will slow. The city also might be tempted to grow as fast as Waukee has if the proposed eastern beltway goes west of the town limits. The county is still studying a possible route for the beltway.

“Population is growing and it will expand,” Elson said, “Unfortunately you don’t have much control over that, but you can control the type of growth you want and the type of growth that adds quality of life.”

“You’re going to see a lot of changes in Bondurant over the next couple of years, so hold on to your hat,” Adams said. “Look out, Altoona and Ankeny Bondurant’s coming to town.”