Hotel Update: Construction on floors 4 through 8 are progressing well and it appears that the hotel is scheduled to open this winter.  The current unoccupied floors of the Liberty Building, floors four through eight, would become the new home to Hyatt Place Hotel. This would create the first condotel in Iowa where a building is part hotel-part condominiums. Personally, having lived in Florida, condotels were quite common and always some of the most desirable places to live. The residents were extremely happy with the news.

With just under 100 new hotel rooms for the downtown market, this would be Hyatt’s first entrance into the downtown Des Moines market and a first for Hyatt Place in Iowa. The hotel would feature a separate entrance than the current resident’s entrance, a first floor lobby, with small bar and food area. Condo residents would enjoy most of the amenities a hotel brings such as morning newspaper delivery, 24-hour concierge service and even a brand new swimming pool in the basement of the building.

Nelson Development would remain the owner of the building and hotel. Nelson currently owns other hotels, residential and commercial buildings both here in Iowa and other cities in the mid-west.

Here are some pictures of what a typical Hyatt Place looks like.

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Some local residents at 418 Liberty Luxury Condos recently got together to help plan, organize and host the first ever downtown garage sale. Any resident that lives in any of the downtown complexes and come register and come to the 418 Liberty Parking Garage on Saturday morning, June 13th to set up their own space and sell whatever items that they may have.

There should be a lot of traffic from the Farmer’s Market a few blocks away and it should be good time for all. If you live downtown and would like to register for your free space to sell that morning, go to: www.downtowngaragesale.com and sign up. LivingDowntownDesMoines.com is one of the many sponsors of the event.

Last year we ran a short piece about urban gardens and with this past weekends new garden planted by some of the 418 Liberty Condo residents, I thought we would run the story again with a couple of new photos courtesy of Perry Wehrle.

If you have a balcony or garden area downtown, here are some tips on planning for your urban garden:

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Thursday evening, Jake Christensen of Nelson Development and a resident of 418 Liberty Condos met with residents to share some really great news. The current unoccupied floors of the Liberty Building, floors four through eight, would become the new home to Hyatt Place Hotel. This would create the first condotel in Iowa where a building is part hotel-part condominiums. Personally, having lived in Florida, condotels were quite common and always some of the most desirable places to live. The residents were extremely happy with the news.

Construction on the new hotel would begin sometime this coming spring, with construction targeted for completion by the end of 2009. With just under 100 new hotel rooms for the downtown market, this would be Hyatt’s first entrance into the downtown Des Moines market and a first for Hyatt Place in Iowa. The hotel would feature a separate entrance than the current resident’s entrance, a first floor lobby, with small bar and food area. Condo residents would enjoy most of the amenities a hotel brings such as morning newspaper delivery, 24-hour concierge service and even a brand new swimming pool in the basement of the building.

Nelson Development would remain the owner of the building and hotel. Nelson currently owns other hotels, residential and commercial buildings both here in Iowa and other cities in the mid-west.

Here are some pictures of what a typical Hyatt Place looks like.

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If you are thinking about making the move to downtown, one of the first things you are going to need to do is find yourself a great realtor with experience in the downtown housing market. Purchasing a condo or loft in an urban downtown area is much different than purchasing a condo or town home in the burbs. For one, you are not necessarily buying just square footage; you are mainly buying the downtown urban lifestyle that will come with the purchase of a downtown unit. Since the downtown lifestyle is an important aspect of your purchase plans, it’s my opinion that the realtor you choose, should also reside downtown. Suburban realtors just don’t have the insight to help the downtown buyer pick the perfect unit for him or her, again this is just my opinion.

With the above said, this will be an initial installment featuring a downtown realtor. For realtors that live downtown and sell downtown, I’ve come up with seven questions that the realtor will be asked to respond to. Their answers will help give prospective clients insight on choosing a realtor that is right for him or her in helping them select and complete a downtown real estate transaction.

1. How long have you been a realtor?
2. How long have you focused on the downtown market?
3. What makes you excited about selling in the downtown market?
4. Why is now a great time to purchase downtown?
5. What are the demographics of your typical client who wants to purchase downtown?
6. If you could change anything about downtown to increase people wanting to live downtown, what would you change?
7. A short bio about yourself and family.

Our first realtor will be my personal realtor, Tina Johnson.

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When I first moved to the Des Moines metro, I worked downtown and lived in West Des Moines and made the commute back-n-forth from the burbs to downtown five days a week. A few years ago, that changed and my offices were located in West Des Moines so the commute was short and sweet. Back in March of this year, I moved downtown and started the reverse-commute to my offices in West Des Moines. The reverse commute hasn’t been that bad, it’s only taken me about 15 to 20 minutes to get to work and home each day, this is significantly shorter than the nearly half hour to forty-minute commutes I had in South Florida. I found out this week that my department will be relocating in the upcoming weeks to our downtown offices. Talk about a short commute, I won’t even have to get my car out of the garage. It will be a walking commute for me. A hugh advantage to both working and living downtown.

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If you are reading this blog, you are also probably subscribing to the monthly downtown newsletter from the Downtown Community Alliance. If not, I suggest subscribing today! Each month one of their most popular stories is the Urban Pioneer series. They pick someone to interview that has recently moved downtown to share that person’s story of why they choose to move to downtown Des Moines. This month, I am their featured Urban Pioneer. Below is my story from the October newsletter.

URBAN PIONEER – LARRY BRADSHAW

When Larry Bradshaw heard he was being transferred from Florida to the Des Moines area in 2003 he was excited to learn an urban lifestyle was a possibility. The day before he was in town to tour a downtown condo, the building caught fire and burnt down. Larry moved to the suburbs, but kept his eye on downtown. 

As Downtown continued to offer more living choices and more amenities, he was drawn to the core of our city. Today, he lives right in the middle of all of the action. Last March Larry moved into the 418 Liberty Building where enjoys a nice eastern view of Downtown which includes the Capitol, Wells Fargo arena, the Principal Riverwalk and the Travelers sign. The high ceilings, great views, close parking and skywalk access were all great selling points for him. 

“I chose the Liberty Building because it has a New York style apartment feel to it,” explains Larry. “When I purchased the condo, it was an unfinished shell. My developer, Nelson Construction, was excellent to work with to complete my home. They gave me the opportunity to really custom design the condo.”

Living downtown has given Larry the ability to park his car and walk just about everywhere, except to work. He does a reverse commute to Wells Fargo in West Des Moines but sometimes he works out of the downtown office. He enjoys being able to walk to dinner, to the gym and to just hang out. Some of his favorite neighborhoods are the East Village and Court Avenue District.

Larry’s new urban lifestyle has been such a great experience that he has started his own blog on downtown living. “I’ve made an investment in downtown and this blog serves as an outlet for me to share what downtown living is all about.” Larry tackles a new topic on downtown living almost daily. You can check out his blog at www.livingdowntowndesmoines.com.

“Downtown has changed and grown tremendously since I moved here five years ago,” says Larry. “The best thing about living downtown for me, is feeling like you are a part of something that is ready to experience huge growth.”

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Gym F/X 418 6th Avenue – Suite 110, Des Moines, Iowa 50309 Phone: 515-288-1111 Website: www.gymfxandtannging.com  Current Gym Hours: Monday – Friday 5am – 9pm Saturday 8am – 5pm Sunday 9am – 1pm Current Tanning Hours: Monday – Thursday 10am – 7pm Saturday – Sunday Closed

Gym F/X Fitness and Tanning is located in the historic Liberty Building on the corner of 6th and Grand in downtown Des Moines. The gym is located on the 1st floor, tanning salon and juice bar is located on the 2nd floor or skywalk level.

Gym Equipment:

40 Pieces Cardio Equipment Cardio Theatre w/Flat Screen Monitors Selectorized Circuit Training (FAST and effective) Strength Equipment – Complete line of Precor strength equipment, 35,000 lbs Olympic Free Weights

Tanning Salon:
6 Bed Tanning Salon Including 3 Stand- Up Units High Pressure Facial Tanning All GYM F/X Members save 15% on tanning session packages. 5 Levels of Tanning Available

Juice Bar/Nutrition Center:
GymF/X offers food to go at there Juice Bar which features APEX meal Replacement Products along with an exclusive line of nutritional APEX supplements that are recommended with your goals and lifestyle in mind.

This gym is perfect for both those that work downtown or live downtown. The gym has a full staff of professional trainers, full-size locker rooms and showers. For more information on the gym contact Doug Van Wyk at 515-288-1111.

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Space can be at a premium, and certainly at a premium price at some downtown condominiums. This begs the question: Which is more important to you – an oversized bedroom, or additional closet space? Do you want a larger kitchen or perhaps a larger living room or master bathroom?

Think about it, storage is one of the most important things when you are living in a small place. Some developers really mess up an otherwise great floor plan with out-of-proportion room sizes, you know huge living room or kitchen and tiny bedroom or closet, or just the opposite. One condo I visited had the kitchen smack dab in the middle of the living room which gave no good usable floor space for a sofa or tv on either side. The realtor even said when showing the place that this could be fixed before I even asked. The developer should fix the mistake before showing the unit and then it might sell.

Regardless of whether you end up with a good floor plan or a bad one, the key is to maximize your space with appropriate organization techniques. For example, I was lucky enough to have an unfinished unit and I requested 42″ high cabinets in the kitchen instead of the traditional 30″ cabinets, this gave be a lot more storage than I would have add otherwise seeing how I got 7 extra cabinets with 12 extra inches each.

Another thing that I wanted to do is to make sure I could maximize my bedroom closet, keeping in mind that all, and I mean all, of my clothing, shoes, and belts and some extra bed linens would need to be put in there. I would have no room for dressers or chest of drawers in my bedroom or bathroom areas. I called a couple of closet companies in the area, got some bids and some space planning ideas, but unfortunately none of the local companies had exactly what I was looking for. If I was going to pay a lot of money for a closet system, it needed to not only work for my space planning needs but it needed to really look sharp.

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Staying fit downtown has to be one of the best advantages to living downtown because it’s so easy. For one thing you can walk most everywhere you need, either outside or through the skywalk and if you prefer to bike, we now even have bike rentals downtown. With the Principal Riverwalk coming, walking or biking downtown will be even better.

For downtown gyms we have basically two places, the Downtown YMCA and Gym F/X Fitness & Tanning. I belong to Gym F/X, it’s on the first and second floor of my building, the Liberty Building. I’m happy to say that since joining the gym and moving downtown where I’m way more active, I’ve lost 10 pounds and 8 percent body fat in the last six months.

When joining the gym, I signed up for their LivFit 10 Week Training Program. It’s basically a 5 component system that covers: food intake, cardiovascular training, taking supplements to eliminate nutritional deficiencies, resistance training and application of programming. With this program I was signed up for the BodyBugg and had a personal trainer, Jeff Zelenovich, to assist me through the program. I had done so well on the 10 week program, I’ve continued on using BodyBugg program for another year.

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