Groundbreaking anticipated this spring on Linn County’s Dows Farm ‘agricommunity’

CEDAR RAPIDS — Crews will likely break ground this spring on Linn County’s Dows Farm “agricommunity” while the project’s development team re-imagines the farming element planned for the site.

A faulty well pushed nonprofit Feed Iowa First off the land earlier than planned last year, prompting developer Chad Pelley of Twenty40 Building Concepts to pursue new plans for the farm elements of the project.

Pelley said he remains interested in purchasing the entirety of the site, including the farmland, but there are no immediate plans to do so.

In the meantime, Linn County Planning and Development Director Charlie Nichols told the Linn County Board of Supervisors on Monday the first phase of work will start this spring on the development, beginning with street, sewer and water infrastructure.

Developers are refining bids for the first phase, Pelley said, where he anticipates a variety of housing styles and price points to get off the ground. There will be mixed-use buildings with second-floor apartments, single-family homes, some town houses and six homes in a pocket neighborhood funded with $990,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery money, awarded to Iowa to assist with 2020 derecho recovery.

Overall, the vision for the approximately 170-acre Dows Farm project includes about 250 housing units, walking trails and land conservation elements.

While planning an amenity-rich development, Pelley said he’s working through getting bank appraisals and finalizing budgets before work starts this spring. If crews begin work in the spring, Pelley said he’d anticipate construction to begin above ground by the end of summer.

Farm elements

The county had originally considered selling the farmland to the developer to find the farmer, so that remains a possibility. If this land were sold, Nichols previously said it’s zoned to allow for only farming, but it would also be sold with a deed that further restricts its use to farming — keeping the possibility of development off the table.

The supervisors are slated to modify the Dows purchase agreement to make technical changes that account for the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust no longer being affiliated with the project. Changes include the removal of a farm property governing board that would collect a fee from the development portion to put toward the farm element.

The Sustainable Iowa Land Trust previously leased a roughly three-acre portion of the overall approximately 40 acres reserved to be used as farmland to Feed Iowa First. The land housed Feed Iowa First’s Equitable Land Access program, which allows land access to underserved farmers.

The supervisors declined to fund a new or repaired well at the site because they didn’t want the well to be in the wrong spot as the project comes to life on county-owned land bordered by Mount Vernon Road on the south, Dows Road on the west and the Squaw Creek Ridge residential development on the northeast.

In reworking the farm element of the development, Pelley said he and his team are trying to find partnerships. Conversations are underway with a vineyard, honey producer and other entities to offer agricultural elements within neighborhoods that could potentially be managed by homeowners associations. Growers could have a section of a neighborhood to cultivate local produce, he said.

“We really want to see the agricommunity embrace it within the neighborhood,” Pelley said.

Once more residential units are off the ground, he said the intention is to purchase and control the farm, but options are open for now.

Pelley said he hopes to work with Indian Creek Nature Center on educational opportunities with residents, add composting stations and offer a pumpkin patch for the neighborhood, for example, so “we’re getting the bang for the buck” without spending the money and resources on a traditional farm as originally envisioned.

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