The City of Council Bluffs is exploring monumental changes to their riverfront in order to address a housing shortage. That could lead to dense development along the Missouri River’s east bank.
Council Bluffs has been making incremental and landscape-changing moves at River’s Edge, an area north of Interstate 480, for more than a decade. The completion of Tom Hanafan Park in 2013 set the stage for ongoing commercial redevelopment in the area, including a 4-story office building and hundreds of apartments already completed, still under construction or being planned.
Additionally, construction has gone vertical for the long-awaited River’s Edge Phase 4 amenities, including the Treetop Walk and MidAmerican Energy Adventure Tower. The latter includes a 138-foot tall observation tower, a 50-foot rock-climbing wall and a roll-glide track. While these projects have transformed the Council Bluffs riverfront, the city has even more ambitious plans.
Council Bluffs Mayor Matt Walsh has been sounding the alarm on his city’s housing shortage. The current rental vacancy rate is 1.7 percent, and owner-occupied home vacancy rate is 0.6 percent. Without new housing, the city is growth-limited, plus such housing shortages can lead to faster growing rental rates and home prices.
The city also suffers from the increasing maintenance costs of aging infrastructure as well as suppressed property tax collections due to lower housing valuations compared to other Iowa communities. Coupled with rising costs from inflation, the city is seeking additional sources for property tax generation.
To address the myriad issues, the city is considering redevelopment of the historic Dodge Riverside Golf Course, located along the riverfront, south of Interstate 480. Recently, Council Bluffs commissioned HDR for a concept study and SB Friedman for a market feasibility study. The completed studies were presented to the city council last week.
Currently, the golf course brings in about $30,000 to 40,000 in annual revenue. According to the completed studies, if fully built out, redevelopment of the golf course could generate up to $22.7 million in annual property taxes. This is based on development with a total of $1 billion of assessed value, including nearly 4,000 new housing units and 248,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. The development would also include 36 acres of green space. Early renderings show a mixture of multi-family housing types, including riverfront high rises, 3-to-5-story apartment buildings and townhouses.
The city plans to declare the property as “surplus” at the May 5th City Council meeting. The declaration does not authorize the sale of the golf course. However, if approved, the declaration triggers the lengthy process to ultimately sell the property, which would include public engagement, master planning, zoning change, formal appraisal and issuance of request for proposals, among other things.
