IOWA CITY

Moss Farms, located north of Interstate 80 and west of North Dodge Street behind Pearson, is lined up to become Moss Green Urban Development.

The project is a mix of residential, retail and commercial space that would be constructed along the proposed Oakdale Boulevard extension connecting Coralville and Iowa City.

    The Moss family, along with ECO-4 Partners of Des Moines, are developing the property. According to the developers’ Loopnet.com marketing material, they have contracted Kiewit Building Group of Omaha to build the environmentally friendly infrastructure; the company employs more than 100 LEED-accredited professionals. 

    Developers submitted their planned unit development (PUD) plan to the city Aug. 25, and the group filed a response to some of the city’s questions last week. Now, developers are working with local groups to acquire funding for the road extension.

   The project is 16 proposed lots on 170 acres. Five of the lots would be commercial, with 396 residential units housed in the upper stories; 10 lots would be office and commercial space, and the final lot would be a transit center with potential bus stops.

    “What’s unique about this is it will have retail stores, some restaurants, maybe some boutiques; we plan on having a grocery store somewhere in the complex,” said Barry Crist, a partner with ECO-4. “Everything you need would be within walking distance. This is a place where people would want to live, work and play.”

    The plans are very preliminary but could include medical research tenants and companies involved in developing environmentally friendly technologies.
“We want to bring jobs to Iowa City, and if you want 20,000 to 30,000 square feet of office space and parking in Iowa City, people would laugh at you,” he said. “We thought it would be neat, with the colossus that the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is, if there was an office park there where you could have a public/private partnership for medical research.”

    The project would not compete with the UI’s new BioVentures Center, a 90,000-square-foot, $20 million business incubator opened last year down the street at Oakdale Boulevard and Highway 965. The UI project is also seeking public/private partnerships.

    “We would be looking for mature, established companies,” Mr. Crist said. “And even though I thought it would be a neat place for pharmaceutical companies or medical research companies, it may not take that tack. There could be many types of companies, certainly ones that would be espousing green technologies.”

    Iowa City’s proximity to urban centers such as Chicago was another reason for the location, to potentially attract Illinois companies to the area.
“The cost of doing business in Iowa City is considerably less than the cost of doing business in Chicago,” he said.

    Geothermal energy, green roofs, daylighting, roof vegetation, rainwater recycling and porous concrete are a few of the elements that will be installed in the development.
“A couple years ago we had companies looking for space in a green business park in Iowa and there isn’t any,” he said. “And we’re going to take it a step further and make it a macro green park. That means everything is green, from beneath your feet to the clouds in the sky.”

   Sewers will be made from a fiberglass product that doesn’t crack or leak and lasts at least 150 to 250 years, he said. Solar and wind energy could also be incorporated into the project. Building materials will be made from a precast concrete filled with foam insulation, which requires less heating and cooling. A minimum of a bronze-level LEED accreditation is being sought by developers for the project.
The area will include tennis courts, an amphitheater and trails.

    The development will not be aggressively marketed until grants are approved to extend Oakdale Boulevard, Mr. Crist said.
“We’re waiting until our ducks are all aligned, are all in a row, and I would think that would be forthcoming in the next month or so,” he said.
Two major tenants are expected to fill the first building. Mr. Crist declined to name the companies until contracts are signed.

    If the city applies for Revitalize Iowa’s Sound Economy (RISE) grants to pay for the Oakdale extension, the road project would be competing with RISE funds to pay for road improvements to the city’s new wind energy industrial park on the southeast side. RISE funds are typically used to pay for roads improvements that lead to new economic development projects. The Moss Green development needs more planning before it gets to that stage, said Wendy Ford, the city’s economic development coordinator.

    “It will be kind of interesting if it comes to bear. It’s a beautiful piece of land it’s just inaccessible right now,” she said.

By Gigi Wood
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