Building move making way for new Cedar Rapids medical district (WITH PHOTO GALLERY)

A 105-year-old building took its first steps in relocation Wednesday to make way for a new medical development.

A crew from Ron Holland Housemoving of Forest City rolled the stucco home-turned office at 1113 Second Ave. SE about 50 feet south to a temporary holding spot.

The building will be moved several blocks away in a week or so. Utility companies and the city need to coordinate the timing of the move because it will temporarily disrupt traffic.

Moving just yards at a time, special fiberglass mats were placed on the ground to keep the building rolling over mud from the past week's rain.

Holland said the 55-foot-wide building, which weighs about 150 tons, seemed to handle the move well.

“The old houses, they're a lot tougher than the newer ones,” he said.

The 1906 Arts and Crafts-style home, which is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, is being relocated to make way for the Physicians' Clinic of Iowa Medical Pavilion.

St. Luke's Hospital, which is assembling the property for PCI, contributed about $17,000 toward the move -  the amount that would have been spent on demolition.

Greg Fowler, president of NorthCreek Management of West Branch, didn't know what the total cost of the move would be.

“It's significant,” said Fowler, who is overseeing work for Green Development of Iowa City, which is having the building moved to lease as office space.

He noted that because of the building's height, at 44-feet-tall, all utility wires have to be lowered to make way for the move and each utility company charges for that time.

GALLERY: House on the move

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Joe Ernster, regional construction supervisor for Mediacom, said the fiber-optic cables that were lowered Wednesday feed 20,000 to 30,000 customers. No one should have experienced an outage when the cables were moved, he said.

Alliant Energy also moved its power lines.

Both companies and other utilities will again be involved when the building is rolled to its eventual home, several blocks away at 616 Fourth Ave. SE, the site of the former Palace Apartments. That building was demolished in 2009.

Fowler said the structure should take little time to renovate.

“The interior is great,” he said.

PCI's 206,000-square-foot medical mall will be built across a portion of Second Avenue SE, which will be closed to traffic beginning May 16.

Crews have been converting streets from one-way to two-way in the area to prepare for Second Avenue's closure.

Seven buildings, including two eligible for the National Register, have been demolished so far to make way for the medical mall.

Preservationists were especially interested in saving the stucco home, which most recently was used as an office for The Creative Gene, an advertising agency.

The home has a connection to the Averill mansion, just across the street at 1120 Second Ave. SE.

Historian Mark Stoffer Hunter said Arthur T. Averill, owner of the Cedar Rapids Gas Co., had the mansion built in 1884. His son, Glenn Averill, an investment banker, had the stucco home built across the street decades later.

The home was designed by architectural firm Josselyn and Taylor, which also worked on the historic Brucemore mansion in Cedar Rapids.