Newstrack: Iowa City office park back on track

Background

Ground was broken in June 2010 for Moss Green Urban Village, a 170-acre project billed by the developers as the first-in-the-nation 'green” business park. The developers encountered significant upfront infrastructure costs and were unable to obtain bank financing.

A new attempt to develop the first nine lots in the office park was planned by a West Des Moines development partnership. That failed to materialize due to a dispute with neighboring property owner Pearson, the educational products and services company, over access to the former Moss Dairy Farm.

What's happened since

Iowa City has reached an access agreement with Pearson, enabling construction of 2,100 feet of Moss Ridge Road, along with reconstruction of 2,300 feet of Highway 1 north of Interstate 80.

Jeff Davidson, Iowa City director of planning and zoning, said grading was completed on Moss Ridge Road and utilities were installed in 2014. Pavement should be installed when weather permits in the spring, he added.

The Iowa Transportation Commission has approved a $1.9 million grant from the state's Revitalize Iowa's Strong Economy program to provide part of the funding for the $4 million road projects.

'The road will provide access to the first phase of the office park, which will have nine lots,” Davidson said. 'Five of them are commercial office lots and four of them are commercial lots that are intended to support the existing office development in that area as well as the office development that will be created.”

Steve Moss, who is developing his family's dairy farm, said the only access to the property has been through Pearson's parking lot. Moss said the new road will provide the primary access that prevented development to start earlier.

'We had a letter of intent from a customer who wanted to construct a substantial building,” Moss said. 'We had two years, but we lost it because of delays with access.

'With the access road issue decided, we will be negotiating a development agreement with the city. We are moving forward and expect to list the office park for development this spring.”

Moss said the 170-acre project will be called Moss Ridge Campus. He said the access issue dates back 20 years when the family tried and failed to get access on the south side of Pearson's property.

The new access road will be located on the north side of Pearson. The city's agreement provides for Pearson with two accesses to the new roadway.

'We also would like to add housing in addition to the office park,” Moss said. 'We want people to be able to live and work in the same area.”