Des Moines Register
08-03-06
Ankeny plans 'complete community'
In a decade, the development could bring up to 10,000 new residents
By LAURA PIEPER
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Ankeny is being reinvented.
A 1,031-acre urban development project called Prairie Trail, whose details will be
unveiled today by city officials and developers, will create an Ankeny town center
and raise the bar for development in the Des Moines metropolitan area, officials
said.
"I think you can say it's the largest 'new urbanist' project in the Midwest," said
Don Carter, president of the Pittsburgh-based firm Urban Design Associates. The
firm created the master plan for Prairie Trail on land nestled within Ankeny's city
limits that is now the home of the Iowa State University dairy farm.
New urbanism incorporates a town center and residential neighborhoods with
plenty of green space and an emphasis on pedestrian traffic.
"It's a place that doesn't exist now in Ankeny," Carter said. "In a sense, we're
doing a complete community."
That community could increase Ankeny's population, now at about 36,000, by up
to 10,000 residents in the next decade. The project is estimated to be done in
2008 or 2009.
Prairie Trail will be focused around a town center built from scratch in the
cornfields currently growing north of Des Moines Area Community College's
Ankeny campus. The center will feature outdoor cafes, retail and open space
around an old-fashioned town square.
Residential neighborhoods, ranging from apartments to large single-family
houses, will fill most of the property and be connected by pedestrian and bicycle
trails and enhanced by large green spaces, parks and lakes.
"We think the walkability of Prairie Trail is one of its strengths," Ankeny City
Manager Carl Metzger said.
An office park is planned on the west side of Prairie Trail near John Deere Des
Moines Works. Other commercial development is planned along the main
corridors of Oralabor Road and Ankeny Boulevard. Prairie Trail will also feature
the city's new police station, which is part of a public safety facilities improvement
project approved by Ankeny voters in May. It could house a new library,
elementary school and cultural center. A rapid-transit center is being considered
near the town center on State Street.
"It's got a lot of things I've never done in a development before," said Dennis
Albaugh, whose company, DRA Properties, is working with Ankeny officials to
plan the development, which is roughly equivalent in size to downtown Des
Moines from Interstate Highway 235 south to the Raccoon River.
The ISU dairy farm, which occupies the Prairie Trail site, is set to move to a new
facility near Ames by the end of 2007.
Ankeny officials made an offer to buy the land from Iowa State University for
$23.6 million in 2005, then sought proposals on how the land could be
developed. They chose Albaugh to be the project's master developer, and his
company purchased the land from Iowa State University for $23.6 million.
New urbanist developments are popular in larger cities that want to revitalize
older neighborhoods or industrial areas or seek to develop city outskirts, Carter
said. A virtually open tract of 1,000 acres within a city is rare anywhere in the
country.
"I think it's actually very unique to essentially have a cleared site surrounded by
development like that," Carter said.
Iowa City has a new urbanist development that includes about 100 houses.
Prairie Trail will feature more than 3,000 houses. Denver, Colo., and Chicago
have new urbanist developments, Albaugh said. In Denver, the Stapleton urban
development exists on what was a 4,700-acre airport until the mid-1980s.
West Des Moines Community Development Director Clyde Evans said his
community is no stranger to the concept of new urbanist design, and several
current projects there reflect those standards. The largest project is Tallyn's
Reach, a 344-acre development that includes residential housing, a retirement
community, a school and a park.
"Nothing to the scale that Prairie Trail is," Evans said. "It's certainly nice that
they've got that large a piece of property ... to try out these projects and be able
to integrate them into the community."
Carter said the character of Prairie Trail will reflect the values and designs of
traditional Des Moines-area architecture. Urban Design Associates analyzed
Ankeny's older neighborhoods, particularly in Uptown Ankeny, the city's original
downtown. Planners also visited several area communities, including Winterset
and Pella, to examine their town squares and older neighborhoods and gather
ideas on architecture and greenspace design.
Building designs, neighborhood layouts, the town square concept and even the
types of trees to be planted at Prairie Trail all reflect Ankeny and Iowa's heritage,
planners said.
"It's very evocative of the old town of Ankeny just north of the project, and parts
of Des Moines around the art museum," Carter said.
Another part of Prairie Trail's link to the rest of Ankeny will be its proximity to Des
Moines Area Community College.
DMACC President Rob Denson said Prairie Trail will include two roads into the
school's property and student housing near the campus. It will also provide a
unique opportunity for student employment, he said. Basically, Prairie Trail's town
center will become DMACC's campus town.
Tedd Rapp of DRA Properties said he is not concerned about the market for
such a development, despite new-house construction numbers falling and rising
interest rates.
"We're providing something that's going to be different from anywhere else," he
said.