The following article appeared in the Dept. of Administrative Service's newsletter, issued today:

State Takes Possession of Final E. Locust Building

The Iowa Association of Community College Trustees (IACCT) has vacated their building at 707 E. Locust, one of the row houses at the base of the West Capitol Terrace, and moved into their new building on East Court, at the base of the sledding hill.

The State now has possession of 707 E. Locust, which means the State now owns all of the land and buildings on the West Capitol Terrace and, as funding permits, can move forward with removing the buildings to finish the park. The IACCT building will have asbestos removed over the winter months and is scheduled to be demolished in early spring. The other building – the row house at 709 E. Locust – shares a wall with 707 E. Locust, but planners are not yet sure if one building can be demolished without affecting the other. A moving company has evaluated the historic row house and said it could be moved to a different location, provided it is still structurally sound after the demolition of 707, which doesn’t have the same historical value because of all the renovations made to the building over the years.

If anyone knows of an individual or organization that may be interested in preserving the historic row house at 709 E. Locust by moving it off the Capitol Complex, please contact Robert Bailey at 515-281-7056.

April 17, 2000 Des Moines City Council meeting: Item #00-1122 91. On Plan and Zoning Commission recommendation to approve request from Historic District Commission to designate 709 E. Locust Street as a Local Landmark. Moved by Brooks to adopt. Motion Carried 7-0.

Local Landmarks include any building, site, or improvement that has a special character or special historical or aesthetic value for the City of Des Moines. Local landmarks range from signs, to buildings, to portions of Greenwood Park.

Designation as a local landmark provides protection to properties that are locally significant. The City’s Historic District Commission, Plan and Zoning Commission, and City Council must all act to declare a property a local landmark. Once designated the ordinance requires design review before the city’s Historic District Commission prior to making any exterior alterations.

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Also:
July 15, 2009 Meeting Minutes of the Capitol Planning Commission

West Capitol Terrace and Row House
Dean Ibsen advised West Capitol Terrace Phase 1 and Phase 2 are completed and Phase 3 to finish off the southwest corner of the Terrace has not been funded although we have about $220,000 remaining from Phase 2. You may have seen a recent article about the Row House which is 709 E. Locust with some suggestions that the building could moved.

We have made no decisions other than the default direction to demolish the building. In September, we will also acquire 707 E. Locust which is the Community College Building and again, the default decision would be to demolish that building and to finish off the area as green space. Once again, we have not received any formal direction in terms of doing that; however, that is where we are headed. In terms of relocating or moving the Row House, I believe we are waiting for somebody to raise their hand in some way.

The other option would be to put an RFQ out to demolish, move or salvage the building, not unlike what we did for 1022 Des Moines Street. We said they could either move it off the site and clean up the site or you can demolish it in place or you can do a combination of demolish and salvage the building. This is probably what we would consider for both of those buildings. Nobody has come to us directly and said they want the building. The reason to get them out of the way is so we don’t have the responsibility of maintaining vacant buildings, we know that to use them, we would have to spend a considerable amount of money for life, health, safety things, etc., a number of things we do not have the funding for nor do we have designated uses for those buildings.

We have major maintenance money and we have authorization to spend about $1 million dollars of major maintenance money for demolition but that is money we would use all over the State. Right now we presume we would spend about $150,000 of demolition money statewide, noting we have approximately $220,000 remaining from the West Capitol Terrace project which we could use for demolition.