111 more properties added to Cedar Rapids buyout list

CEDAR RAPIDS - Six weeks ago City Hall put out an absolute last call for property owners to get into the city's flood buyout program, and people heard: The owners of 111 residential and commercial properties scurried to beat the deadline.

The City Council this week approved adding the final group of flood-hit properties to the program, which is funded with federal Community Development Block Grant money. The additions bring the number of buyout properties to about 1,350, flood recovery and reinvestment Director Joe O'Hern said Wednesday. Between 100 and 150 of the sites are commercial and the rest residential, he said.

He anticipated that some of this last group of properties may not qualify for the buyout program for various reasons, including not having sustained enough damage in the Floods of 2008.

Among the properties in the final group is the Intermec Technologies Corp. building at 550 Second St. SE, which the City Assessor's Office values at $2.48 million. Intermec is moving into a new building, now under construction, at 601 Third St. SE.

Also on the list is the home of Affordable Plumbing and Remodeling, 816 First Ave. NW, which is owned by City Council member Don Karr and his family. Karr is retired from the operation of the business, which is run by a daughter and son, he said Wednesday.

Karr said he hasn't decided whether he's going to stay in the buyout program, but he suspected that others, like him, only put their properties on the buyout list after voters on March 6 rejected the extension of the city's local-option sales tax. Revenue from the tax extension would have helped build west-side flood protection, and without it, Karr said he's not sure his building will retain its value.

Also in the last group of 111 properties are two owned by King's Material Inc., 620 and 650 12th Ave. SW, valued by the City Assessor's Office at $1.7 million. Two churches, Redemption Missionary Baptist, 1510 Second St. SW, and Word of Faith Pentecostal Church, 716 Eighth Ave. SW, also are on the list.