Visits to Kading Properties bring back enthusiasm for new Charles City housing project

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Charles City and Floyd County officials who recently visited some Kading Properties homes came back with praise for the residences and the company that owns them.

Last August, representatives from Kading Properties visited Charles City as part of the company’s “Hometown Tour,” meeting with local leaders in communities across Iowa while searching for new development opportunities.

The family-owned company based in Urbandale develops, constructs, leases and manages “workforce” properties in almost 30 locations, until now mostly around central Iowa.

Kading is currently working with Charles City to develop a project that could include about 150 units in a likely combination of duplexes, four-plexes, six-plexes or slightly bigger buildings.

The potential project and its impact was one of the agenda items on the Charles City Area Development Corp. board meeting held Wednesday, Feb. 26.

Gloria Carr, the Floyd County Board of Supervisors representative on the CCADC board, said she had visited Kading properties in Pleasant Hill and Marshalltown.

“We were able to go through one of the homes,” Carr said. “They are 100% occupied. They had no problem getting the buildings occupied.

“One person allowed us to go into a three-bedroom, two-bath home. It was really nice. I was really surprised how nice the inside of the homes looked.”

Members of her group were impressed that Kading has never sold one of its developments. It continues to lease, maintain and manage all the units, she said.

Kading puts in its own infrastructure, including utilities and streets, then hooks in with the city.

The streets are narrow, Carr said. Each unit has its own garage and short driveway, but there is no room for street parking.

“But it was nice. They’re close together, but they’re very nice,” she said.

CCADC board member Randy Heitz said the CEO of the company had come to talk with them, and he appreciated that she said they try to work with local contractors and suppliers on their projects.

Tim Fox, the CCADC chief executive officer, said local officials were negotiating slightly wider streets and for a trail through the development, because the homes are too close to the streets for sidewalks, and they are also seeking group parking areas within the development.

“If you have a Christmas celebration, have six cars, you don’t have any place to park them because you can’t park on the street,” Fox said. “So we would like to see a couple of overflow parking areas. And they have been really, I think, quite receptive to listening to us.”

City Administrator Steve Diers said other states are approaching Kading, trying to get the company to build workforce housing development projects there, and the other Iowa communities that were not chosen for this latest Kading project, “they’re a little disappointed.”

“I know other communities have reached out to them to get them to build there, and so they’re hoping that they come to their community as well,” Diers said. “They certainly come highly regarded from IEDA (the Iowa Economic Development Authority) and other folks that worked with them.

“Just these last couple years of us really delving in this whole housing thing is, you meet and talk with a lot of developers, and I’ve never got the good feels as much as I’ve gotten with Kading,” Diers said.

An item on the CCADC agenda was whether to approve a purchase agreement between the CCADC and Kading, doing business as Bloomfield Acres LLC.

“That’s probably a vote that’s going to change the landscape of this community for the next 25 to 30 years,” Fox said before the vote was taken. “I think from the perspective of the Charles City Area Development Corporation this is probably the most heavily vetted project in our recent history. Because we all came in with the same kind of concerns.

“And, you know, we did our due diligence with other Kading communities. We’ve had very good conversations with them. And there are a lot of them. They have 2,600 units now,” Fox said.

“We’ve been very pleased with the direction we received from the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the Iowa Finance Authority, he said.

“I’m bullish on Charles City,” Fox said. “I think we can accommodate the scope of the project. I think we’re at least as good as Knoxville and Pella and all those other communities, Nevada, Boone. So I say to step right up … and do some service for our local employers and find some housing for additional workers.”

The agreement passed unanimously on a voice vote.

On Monday evening, the Charles City Council also approved a purchase agreement with Bloomfield Acres LLC for the Kading development.

See details of the development agreement in the Monday, March 3, City Council story.

Fox said he has heard some complaints that the developers are not local, but, “if anybody wants to come in my town and dump millions of dollars into our economy, I’m not going to quibble with that.”

Diers said one of the aspects of the Thriving Community program “is to encourage developers to get out of Des Moines, get out of Cedar Rapids, you know, areas that don’t have that developer, to get out there and stretch their wings a little bit and do projects.

“And that’s why maybe we have to stretch a little bit further, right, from the price of land and the tax abatement and all that, because they’ve got to come a lot further, and it’s an area they’re not used to.”

Diers said that because this project will have onsite management, it could become a hub for other projects in the area.

“I don’t know, but this is the first step,” he said.