Supervisors to consider Hy-Vee Hall expansion, hotel soon
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BY SARAH BZDEGA
What to do with Hy-Vee Hall, the Polk County Convention Complex and a potential hotel connected to the Iowa Events Center was once again the focus of discussion at the Polk County Board of Supervisors’ meeting this morning.

County Administrator Ron Olson said the county has been working with Economic Research Associates for the past six months on a study on the Iowa Events Center and possible expansion of Hy-Vee Hall, while an architecture firm has worked on potential plans. He expects a final draft of the report will be available to the supervisors to consider by the end of the month.

Matt Homan, general manager of the Events Center, and Greg Edwards, president of the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau, stressed the need for more flexible meeting space and a ballroom in Hy-Vee Hall, as well as a 400-plus room hotel attached to the complex.

The need has become more urgent, Olson added, as other convention centers have developed across the state, including in Coralville, Sioux City and Dubuque, causing statewide conventions to move around rather than remain in Des Moines. Des Moines also faces competition regionally with cities such as Kansas City, which have convention halls with hotels attached.

“I’m concerned that if we don’t address this issue, the competition we’re facing on these conferences and conventions is going to be intense,” Olson said.

Edwards said Des Moines has lost out on hosting 11 groups in the past six months specifically because it did not have an attached hotel to its convention center.

Homan said his staff has had to get creative with its space, such as hosting classes for the American Quilters Society Expo in the locker rooms. He also said that the Convention Complex has become outdated and could face some major repairs in the near future, with warped airwalls and an old dishwasher that could cost around $80,000 to replace.

Due to tough financial times and tighter city and county budgets, Edwards said it could be hard justifying using public dollars to subsidize a hotel, but similar projects in other markets have all had public funding to move them along. Supervisor Tom Hockensmith noted he was against using public money to fund a hotel.

Rehab in store for Hotel Fort Des Moines
By Kent Darr

The Hotel Fort Des Moines is being evaluated for a “soup to nuts” renovation, owner Jeffrey Hunter said.

The 89-year-old structure at 10th and Walnut streets has undergone a series of partial updates over the last decade, the most recent announced in 1999 when Hunter received $400,000 in city financing to complete a $2.6 million upgrade.

Hunter, who bought the hotel from a partnership of which he was a member in June 1999, said he is working with an architect and contractor to establish costs for the project.

“We want to do it 100 percent, rather than take an incremental approach,” he said.

It is possible that the hotel will close during the renovation, but a decision on that will not be made until after the first of the year, Hunter said.

Hunter said he is evaluating funding options for the project.

The hotel has accounted for its share of state and national history. In 1969 in the hotel’s ballroom, Vice President Spiro Agnew launched a verbal attack on television newscasters that evolved into a crusade against the news media. A decade earlier, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev booked a room – the presidential suite – during a tour of Iowa.

The intersection of 10th and Walnut has been a focal point of redevelopment efforts downtown. The 13-story Davis Brown Tower, which counts Hunter as an investor, occupies space where the Hotel Fort Des Moines’ parking ramp once stood.