Iowa town plans $8.6M green renovation of downtown

By LUKE MEREDITH

DES MOINES, Iowa

A small northeast Iowa community is ambitiously overhauling its downtown area to make it more environmentally sustainable, hoping to lure new businesses while providing a model other rural towns can emulate.

West Union, a town of 2,500 residents, hopes to begin work this summer on an $8.6 million green renovation of its six-block downtown district. Plans include porous pavement that lets water seep into the ground, a geothermal heating and cooling system, and storm water-filtering elements such as rain gardens and bioswales.

"We truly believe this will be a national model," said Jeff Geerts, a special projects manager at the Iowa Department of Economic Development.

The state gave the effort an early boost last fall with a $1 million grant. The city plans to chip in about $2 million, and other state, federal and private funding should cover the remainder of the fundraising.

Fayette County economic development director Robin Bostrom said nearly all the design and development work has been completed, and officials hope to put contracts out to bid in May. Some work should begin this summer and the entire project is expected to be finished by late 2011.

Town leaders hope the improvements will lure more small businesses to West Union and possibly entice some larger companies, offering them not only a profitable spot to set up shop but a place where employees would want to live.

"A major goal of the project is sustainability, both from an environmental but also a financial aspect," said Bostrom, who is also the Chamber of Commerce director for West Union. "We're not that different from a lot of small communities in Iowa. We're seeing a lot of the growth go to urban areas, so it's a challenge for communities of our size and those in rural areas of the state to undergo initiatives and projects like this."

The renovations will be the first significant capital improvement project since the late 1970s in downtown West Union, which hasn't even had a storm water drainage system.

The city avoided the flooding of 2008 that left a large swath of eastern Iowa under water, but city officials realized then that they needed to upgrade their storm water management plans.

"That kind of blew our blinders off, and we had to take a look at, 'Oh my gosh, storm water management is something that we, in an urban area, haven't really thought about," Bostrom said. "We thought about water as a waste product, something that you get rid off. Not something that was a resource."

Environmental sustainability advocates hope other towns will take notice of West Union's efforts and make similar improvements.

"It's not a big town ... and they've taken on this really big, comprehensive plan to integrate all sorts of sustainable practices throughout all their planning," said Lynnae Hentzen, executive director of the Center on Sustainable Communities, a nonprofit organization based in West Des Moines. "That's the key to anything sustainable, is really getting buy-in from all those involved and all those who have a stake in the decision-making process."