Designs for a long-awaited Ames development have been revised to include more residential units and less commercial space, while plans for a parking garage and a conference center have been scrapped, pushing back construction to late 2025.
Plans for The Linc on Lincoln Way , which first entered the public eye in 2021, will transform a section of land between Clark Avenue and Kellogg Avenue into a space filled with shopping opportunities, restaurants and apartments. Christensen Development and Hunziker Companies initially hoped to break ground on the development in 2023, but inflated material costs and high interest rates made the project come to a standstill.
During its Wednesday meeting, the Ames City Council agreed to submit a new concept for the Linc to the Iowa Economic Development Authority by Oct. 4. This will be the city's final application for a $10 million grant from its Iowa Reinvestment District program.
Under the revised 2024 plan, the total Linc development budget has dropped from the original $150 million price tag to $137 million. The entire development, which includes several buildings and amenities, is expected to be finished by 2030.
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How have designs for the Linc changed?
The council last reviewed plans for the Linc project on Oct. 11, 2022. The developer has since determined that the initial project was not financially feasible, leading to a handful of alterations.
Ames Planning and Housing Director Kelly Diekmann said the mix of uses and layout is quite different from the original proposal. Highlights include more living space (three buildings in total) but a reduction in the overall footprint while plans no longer include a parking garage or a conference center.
The revised concept includes:
- 372 housing units across three buildings, up from 260
- 40,500 square feet of commercial and restaurant space, down from 53,500 square feet
- A hotel with 128 rooms along with an adjacent 6,000-square-foot restaurant
- A pedestrian bridge is still included in the 2024 plan
- Plans for a downtown parking garage, a conference center and a Linc office have all been eliminated
- The currently under-construction Fitch Family Indoor Aquatic Center and Schainker Plaza are included in the Linc development plans
Though the design has changed, Diekmann says the concept still reaches the project's "destination location" goal.
"The hotel has to be in the project for the Reinvestment District (award); the commercial retail square footage is configured a lot differently but it's still there; we're obviously supportive of housing," Diekmann said. "Ultimately the pieces are there, but they're configured a lot differently."
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City expects construction to start in 2025
If the project is awarded by IEDA, the city aims to negotiate a complete site plan and development agreement in early 2025 or by that summer.
The project would be divided into three phases , with construction starting on Kellog Avenue in phase one and moving to Clark Avenue by phase three.
The first phase includes a hotel and attached restaurant, along with mixed-use residential and retail space. The next two phases will expand the mixed-use residential and retail space to Clark Avenue.
The current plan is for the first mixed-use residential and retail building to be finished in 2026 and the hotel and restaurant in 2027, both of which are part of phase one. Diekmann said the next two phases, which includes two more residential and retail buildings as well as a pedestrian bridge would follow in a one-to-two-year time frame.
If everything goes according to plan, the last building, which will likely be one of the three mixed-use structures, is projected to be completed by 2030.
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TIF will help finance project
The Linc project will receive tax increment financing (TIF) rebate revenues as part of its financing structure.
The Linc developer has assumed that the project must generate a rebate of $19 million over 20 years for each phase to close its financial gap. TIF is about two-thirds of the overall property tax generated in relation to a property, meaning the roughly one-third of taxes associated with debt service for each of the taxing authorities would continue to be collected.
The Linc will generate $23.8 million in taxes
The city prepared an application for the Iowa Reinvestment District program in 2022 and received a preliminary reward of rebated sales and hotel/motel taxes of up to $10 million.
The program provides state incentives of rebated sales and hotel/motel tax generated within a designated Reinvestment District. Ames' designated 75-acre district is situated downtown in an area that will include the Linc, along with the Fitch Family Indoor Aquatic Center and Steven L. Schainker Plaza .
Using the same economic assumptions as the 2022 application, city staff estimated the project's new blueprints and mixed-use would generate about $23.8 million of sales tax and hotel/motel taxes, down a tick from the original estimate of $27.3 million.
The IEDA will reevaluate the final application for the Linc and determine whether the lower projections will affect the preliminary award amount.
Celia Brocker is a government, crime, political and education reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached at CBrocker@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Ames eliminates parking garage but adds housing units in latest "Linc" plans
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