Gazette Daily News Podcast, June 28

We'll get another sub 90s day Tuesday before it warms back up in the middle of the week. According to the National Weather Service it will be sunny for much of the day in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 87 degrees. On Tuesday night after 4 p.m. there will be a 20 percent chance of showers up until around 7 p.m. Then Tuesday night it will be mostly clear, with a low around 63 degrees.

The Iowa City Church on American Legion Road is searching for a place to hold services after an early Saturday morning fire “fully engulfed” the building “in flames and smoke” before it was declared a total loss.

The cause of the fire is unknown, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said Monday. “It is standard practice for the (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) to investigate a fire involving a church and the primary focus at this point is to determine the cause.”

The Johnson County Joint Emergency Communications Center received a call at 4:22 a.m. Saturday about a structure fire at 4643 American Legion Road.

West Branch Fire Department and Iowa City Fire Department responded to the fire on the east side near Iowa City, as did the Iowa City Police Department and the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. The fire was in West Branch’s jurisdiction.

Fire crews extinguished the fire after several hours due to the size of the building and bad weather in the area, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The state of Iowa will invest in the development of a “Field of Dreams” television series, new trail construction and new Des Moines lakefront amenities with a tourism development program funded by federal dollars.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Economic Development Authority on Monday announced $16.5 million in grant money awarded to four projects in the first round of funding through Destination Iowa, a $100 million program supported by the federal American Rescue Plan act.

The two biggest allotments of this chunk of funding were $6 million to Universal Television for the development of a “Field of Dreams” television series, and $7 million to the Siouxland Regional Trail System to develop 100 miles of continuous trail projects connecting Sioux City, Le Mars, Hinton, Merrill and Sergeant Bluff.

In May the city of Cedar Rapids decided they would seek $27 million in funds from the program for a project to transform the greenway along the Cedar River and to boost outdoor recreational amenities.

Meanwhile, Marion is seeking over $3.5 million in funding toward two major projects that will contribute to the city’s goal of making Marion a regional destination.

Marion is seeking funding for the Uptown Central Plaza project as well as the final phase of the long-awaited CeMar Trail through the Destination Iowa Grant process. The total cost of the two projects is just over $9 million.