April 10, 2007
By LAURA PIEPER
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
The Precedence neighborhood will set a precedent for all other development in the Prairie Trail area of Ankeny, city officials say.
The Plan and Zoning Commission unanimously endorsed the neighborhood plan for Precedence, the first residential project in Prairie Trail, at its April 3 meeting. The plan will now go to the City Council for approval.
Prairie Trail encompasses more than 1,000 acres located north of Des Moines Area Community College and extends from South Ankeny Boulevard west to Northwest Irvinedale Drive. The Precedence neighborhood will include about 63 acres west of Southwest State Street, directly across from the planned town center near the middle of the Prairie Trail development. The neighborhood will be bordered by community parks to the north and south.
The Precedence project includes five plats with a total of 136 residential lots. Planning and Building director John Peterson said the lot sizes will be mixed in each block, which he said was a unique concept for modern development.
“That’s the way old neighborhoods developed,” Peterson said.
One of the goals of Prairie Trail, officials have said, is to create an old-fashioned town center in Ankeny and use old home styles and neighborhood plans to bring a sense of history to the area.
“This is the most regulated project we’ve done in Ankeny,” Peterson said.
The entire Prairie Trail development has been planned in advance, and pattern books were created to give developers guidelines on how their projects should look.
The Precedence neighborhood will feature homes with garages in the rear of the buildings, facing a public alley. The concept of rear-loaded garages is also a traditional feature of older neighborhoods, city staff said. The alleys would be wider than current alleys around Ankeny, Peterson said, and could become the main vehicular traffic area for residents.
Whether the concept takes off in other developments is still a question, Peterson said.
“We have to show it will work to start with,” he said.
The commission also approved the plans for Plaza Shops in Prairie Trail, a retail and townhome area of approximately 38 acres on the northwest corner of Southwest State Street and Southwest Oralabor Road.
Part of the neighborhood, along an extension of Southwest White Birch Drive, will include old-fashioned store- fronts.
“It will be like a small version of the Uptown area,” said Tedd Rapp of DRA Properties, the master developer for Prairie Trail.
Both the Precedence and Plaza Shops in Prairie Trail proposals will go to the City Council for approval later this month. City staff will approve preliminary plats within the projects and the council will approve final plats. Peterson said that will save time during the review process and is made possible because of the rigorous standards outlined in the Prairie Trail pattern books. For regular developments, the council must approve all steps of the planning process.
Other Prairie Trail projects under consideration include the town center, with a possible library and other city offices on a town square; a new, 75,000-square-foot police station; a new high school; several community parks and trails; a business park just south of the John Deere complex; and several other residential neighborhoods and retail districts.
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