111 City Lofts

111 10th Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309
Phone: 515-710-1331
Sales Agent: Tim Rietz, Burnett Realty
Website: www.111citylofts.com

Open House: Saturday 1:00 – 4:00 PM, Sundays 1:00 – 4:00 PM.

Pricing: $200,000 to $400,000

Units in Project: 60 / 15 sold
Floors in Building: 5

Property Features:
• one and two bedroom lofts
• 12-16 foot high ceilings
• unit areas from 980 sq. ft. to 1,700 sq. ft. plus large terraces
• walk-in closets and dressing areas
• 1 ½ to 2 ½ generously sized bathrooms per unit
• overhead loft storage space
• environmentally sound features and elements:
• individually controlled high performance heating and cooling
• eco-friendly bamboo floors
• ten-year Polk County Real Estate tax abatement

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This morning I saw a great article in the Des Moines Register about how developers are trying to get more creative due to the downturn in the housing market due to the current subprime credit mess and our current poor economy.

In the last two years over 1,000 new condo units have been built with only about 700 of them being occupied. So how do the get the other 300+ occupied? Sales have been slow recently.

The new tactic is offering lease-to-own programs, at least that’s what the developer is going to offer at 111 City Lofts according to the article. It seems that rental market downtown is pretty hot. Apartments at the Hubbell Tower at 904 Walnut St. and the East Village Square at East Fourth and Grand were rented quickly.

This has even affected the building I purchased in. The Liberty Condo project had planned to convert eight to 10 stories of the 12-story Liberty Building into 46 residential condominium units. Now, it is keeping two-thirds of the building as office space for lease. Currently there are only 7 units sold out of the 17 that have been finished, only floors 9, 10 and 11.

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I happened to find another cool video on YouTube about some residents of downtown who share their story and gives us a peek inside their loft or condo.

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In January, my current relationship at the time ended and I was in the need to find a new place to live as soon as possible. I had the choice of buying a new place in the suburbs or buying a place downtown. Having lived in the burbs since I moved to Iowain 2003, first in a townhome in Glen Oaks and then later to a large home in Clive, I knew I wanted to try something different. Over the past few years, I, like many others, would go on open house tours around the area and my favorites were always the downtown lofts.

So the next question decision was which lofts to choose from and budget was a main consideration since downtown living tended to be a lot more expensive than buying a townhome out west. Since I had toured most of the locations downtown previously and only had a couple of weeks to make a decision and get the closing process started, I narrowed my choices down to the following:

• Whiteline Lofts
• Liberty Condos
• 111 City Lofts
• Brown Camp Lofts

 Big factors for me where:

• Cost
• Square Footage
• Parking
• HOA dues & Utilities
• Tax Abatement
• Location / View

I drug my friend Todd along with me as we set out on my search for where I would call home for the foreseeable future. Our first visit was to the Whiteline Lofts. This was a cool looking new trendy building near the Science Center. Within my price range, I could get a unit on the 6^th floor with a southern view. The space was a little small for me on the square footage size, but in my head I figured I could do it, just sell a lot of my existing furniture and buy new small sized stuff. I didn’t really care for the southern view that much and it over looked the parking lot. Oh, the parking lot, I would have to park outside and I wasn’t really keen on that with dealing with the snow and stuff. This was a huge drawback for me, so we ventured on but not before falling in love with their rooftop patio. How great it would be to bring my friends up there!

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