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Planning for the future

Ideas for Warden Plaza are taking shape

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Plans for the future of the Warden Plaza are gradually being formed, the members of the Fort Dodge Self Supported Municipal Improvement District learned Tuesday. The group's board members learned that the Wahkonsa Unit, light colored building at right, may be demolished to make way for a new recreation center. The Warden itself, at left, will remain standing.

While nothing appears to have changed at the Warden Plaza in Fort Dodge, much is going on behind the scenes to create a new future for the landmark, leaders of a downtown group learned Tuesday.

“There’s a lot going on,” said Matt Brown, president of Formation Group Inc., a Des Moines firm hired by the City Council to serve as a project manager for the effort to revitalize the long-vacant structure.

The building has a new owner, KDG LLC, of Columbia, Missouri, and a joint public-private effort to redevelop it is underway.

Brown told the Self-Supported Municipal Improvement District board that numerous planning meetings held since December are yielding results.

He said a plan that’s receiving a lot of attention calls for tearing down the Wahkonsa Annex and building a new recreation center where it now stands. The Wahkonsa Annex is a light-colored brick building immediately east of the Warden Plaza. The plaza building is at 908 First Ave. S. and the annex is at the corner of First Avenue South and 10th Street.

A two-story recreation center on the annex site is being discussed, according to Brown. He said it would be separate from the Warden Plaza.

Brown added that the possibility of the city government owning the recreation center is being discussed.

The possibility of putting the recreation center inside the Warden Plaza was considered, but Brown said that wouldn’t be practical because of the way the building was designed. He said it doesn’t have a lot of wide open spaces and the bigger spaces are broken up with columns.

He said a restaurant, stores and an art gallery may be on the first floor of the Warden Plaza.

The upper floors, he said, will be filled with apartments. He said that the number of planned apartments has fluctuated between 80 and 150, but he added that about 100 apartments seems most likely. He said they will not be reserved for low income tenants.

Brown said that before anything is done, asbestos and lead paint will have to be removed from both the Warden Plaza and the Wahkonsa Annex. There appears to be a lot of both substances in the two buildings, he said. Finding a way to pay for the proper removal of those materials will be one of the first things that must be done, he added.

ATC Group Services of Des Moines was hired by the City Council in September 2016 to check the building for asbestos and lead paint.

The emerging ideas for the Warden Plaza have evolved during numerous meetings with representatives of the city government, KDG LLC, the committee planning the recreation center and the Fort Dodge Fine Arts Association.

“Things are looking up,” Brown said. “We have a lot more clarity.”

The Warden Plaza is named after its original owner, Theodore Warden, who was an Ohio coal mine investor. The first four floors were built in 1914. Another three floors were added two years later. Construction was finished with the addition of a penthouse in 1925.

It was originally a hotel and apartment building. It also housed shops and offices. In the late 1970s, it became an apartment building for low income residents.

The last residents and businesses moved out about 10 years ago due to mounting maintenance issues.

In March 2016, the city government went to court to take ownership of the building from Coralee LLC, of Oakland, California, under the terms of the state’s abandoned buildings law. That effort was successful and in July 2016 the city took over the property.

In December 2016, the City Council transferred the property to KDG LLC. A preliminary memorandum of understanding obligates that company to invest at least $30 million in the building.

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