September 14, 2010
By MELANIE LAGESCHULTE
A contract to install utilities in the first phase of the town center at Prairie Trail could be approved by the Ankeny City Council as soon as Monday, September 20th.
Prairie Trail is a development of roughly 1,000 acres on the former site of the Iowa State University research farm. City officials chose DRA Properties to serve as the lead developer for the project.
While DRA Properties has done some grading at the future town center, city officials have said, this work would be the first public improvements there. The utility project would be paid for with money from the civic trust fund set up between DRA and the city.
The council held a public hearing Sept. 7 on plans to install water mains, storm sewers and sanitary sewers yet this fall near the locations for a new library/civic building, the first phase of restaurants planned along a lake, and other commercial sites.
While the utility bids were reviewed by the council and the plans approved, City Manager Carl Metzger said Wednesday a vote to award a contract has been delayed until the next council meeting.
There is a possibility that some new details related to the town center might be in place by then, he said.
“We continue to work with DRA Properties on potential businesses going into the town center,” he said. “Also, we are continuing to come to some conclusions on the public buildings in the town center.”
Metzger added while it would be ideal to bring all the updates to the council at the same time, it is possible those other discussions may not be concluded in time for Monday’s meeting.
Either way, he said, the contract for the utility work will be revised to reflect starting the project two weeks later, to not penalize the construction firm.
Paul Moritz, public works director, said at Tuesday’s council meeting that five bids were received on the utility proposal. They varied from roughly $1 million to about $1.52 million. Halbrook Excavating of Ankeny offered the low bid.
“Our engineer’s estimate was right within this range,” Moritz said. The estimate was roughly $1.35 million.
“Quite a bit of interest shown in this project, and we are happy with how the bids came out,” Moritz added.
The town center, which is being called The District at Prairie Trail, is just east of Southwest State Street, roughly between Southwest Magazine Road and the north side of the Des Moines Area Community College campus.
Once work on utilities gets under way, the next city project would be to construct streets in the area, Metzger has said. That project could go through the design and bid process during the winter to begin in the spring.
Metzger has said The District will have at least two phases. The second phase, which would be on land generally northwest and northeast of the first one, might be done in two sections. The speed at which development occurs would be a factor in that decision.
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