Regents approve UI Melrose purchase, parking plan

AMES - State regents on Thursday approved a University of Iowa plan to buy two properties on Melrose Avenue and Melrose Place and to raze some properties in that area to build a parking lot, despite a neighborhood association's request that the board delay the decision for more study.

UI officials will buy the two properties, 711 Melrose Ave. and 1 Melrose Place, for $1.1 million as part of a plan to build a $3 million surface parking lot for University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The properties will be purchased from Oceanview Investments, LLC.

The property at 711 Melrose Ave., a two-story rental house, will be leased back to the sellers for five years at $600 per year. The UI plan also calls for the demolition of structures at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Melrose Place. The UI already owned the other properties. Those buildings are used as temporary/rental housing and the condition of the aging wood-frame structures is increasingly difficult and costly to address, UI officials said. None of the structures are included within the Historic Neighborhood District.

A Wednesday letter to the regents from the Melrose Neighborhood Association said neighbors were shocked to find out about the planned purchase and parking lot only a few days before it became public knowledge last week. In the letter, the association asked the board to postpone the decision for more study of alternatives.

“Destruction of part of a neighborhood for temporary gain would be an extremely unfortunate and deleterious decision,” the letter reads. “The university has stated that it cares about historic preservation and we feel strongly that destruction of part of a historic neighborhood is not a good alternative to solving temporary parking dilemmas when there are less destructive alternatives.”

UI Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations Doug True said the university will work with the neighbors and the city on the parking plan and will hire a designer to plan a parking lot that would not dramatically impact the area. The UI will include a neighbor on the panel that hires the design firm, he said.