Construction begins on Coralville’s Bridgewater Subdivision

CORALVILLE - Crews have broken ground on the first piece of a multiphase development in Coralville, despite concern expressed by neighbors that the project would be too congested.

The Bridgewater Subdivision sits on a roughly 100-acre piece of land immediately west of the Iowa Firefighters Memorial on First Avenue and north of Interstate 80.

City officials recently awarded a building permit for the first of four phases of development on the property - a 170-unit senior housing and memory care facility.

Most of the subdivision, which includes a commercial section and 566 units of housing, still has to go through the Planning and Zoning Commission and Iowa City Council for final approval.

Mike Bails, a representative of developer Venture One, said the two commercial lots planned for the subdivision are most likely to house some kind of office complex. The residences are expected to be a mix of single and multifamily housing, including two apartment buildings.

The Bridgewater Subdivision is framed by the High Country neighborhood of single-family homes to the northwest and west. The planned development is roughly one mile from the Iowa River Landing.

The original Bridgewater Subdivision concept called for four 36-unit apartment buildings. Two of those were taken out of the plans and replaced with townhomes after neighbors of the development site spoke out against the project at several city council meetings.

'It's just dense, dense development, and I think it's inappropriate,” said Jim Caldwell, a neighbor in the High Country area.

Caldwell cited concerns of how so many new residents would affect traffic on the two main streets to get out of the area - Russell Slade Boulevard and High Country Road.

He also questioned whether the city properly calculated the maximum density allowed by the property's zoning. Much of the land, he said, is not developable because of slopes and a pond.

In September, the city council decided to break up approval of site plans for each of the four phases after hearing neighbors' concerns whether large multifamily structures should be built near their neighborhood. Council members voted to approve the site plan of the senior facility but put off voting on the other three phases.

Since then, the city council has approved initial site plans, as well as the first of two steps needed to establish a planned unit development district for Bridgewater.

Planned unit development districts, or PUDs, are created to ensure quality or innovative design of developments that may not otherwise be allowed by zoning codes, according to city code.

Jim Kessler, Coralville building and zoning official, said that when the final PUD application comes back in front of the city council, it is to show information such as how each structure would look and the types of building materials to be used.

One of two commercial lots also has received final approval, but Kessler doesn't think crews are going to break ground before spring on that part of the project.

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