CA Ventures, a Chicago-based real estate company, applied for a special exception to the parking rules for the 13-story mixed-use building at S. Linn St. 21 across the street from Englert Theatre.
The developer requested a 50% reduction in the parking spaces required by the building and provided some parking spaces on the ground floor of the building.
The proposed building will have 229 residential units, including 188 single or one-bedroom apartments, and 41 two-bedroom units.
The proposal includes commercial and convenience spaces on the first floor, including a possible fitness center and residents’ study space.
The rendering of the building also has a setback from the fifth floor, which means that these floors are a few feet behind the brick walls of the first four floors.
If parking spaces are reduced, developers will need to provide 67 parking spaces instead of 135.
The developer submitted an application to reduce parking spaces at the July 14 board meeting, but the board postponed it to the August meeting.
According to a staff report on the agenda, the developer met all the criteria for obtaining a special exception.
In order to reduce parking spaces, the developer needs to prove that the building has unique characteristics and does not require the required number of parking spaces.
In its application, Axiom stated that the complex was designed for students at the University of Iowa and does not require parking spaces because students are unlikely to own a car.
“The parking demand for student-centered urban apartments is lower than that of market-priced apartments farther from the city center,” the application said.
The staff reported that the bank building on the plot is an important resource in downtown Iowa that was designated as a historic district. The plot was once a former city hall. This is also a stagecoach stop.
“We asked them to incorporate some recognition of the historical nature of the site into the project,” said Anne Lasseter, a senior planner in Iowa City.
Karen Kubby, a former member of the Iowa City Council and the owner of the Beadology shop located at 220 E. Washington St. on the west side of the lot, said in a letter to the board of directors that she supports making special exceptions.
Kubby said that she will leave her building before the end of the year, and is discussing with CA Venture about moving into the new building after the new building is completed.
Kube told the Gazette that she usually opposed the high-rise buildings in the city center, but these setbacks preserved the feeling of lower buildings on the street. She said that the ground parking lot is not the best use of the downtown space.
She said: “I think having a building that understands the environment they are developing is a good trade-off.”
She said she also wanted to see the historical nature of the preserved property. She said a plaque on the property now indicates that it used to be a stagecoach stop.
She said: “I think it would be very easy to remove that plaque from the wall and place it on the cornerstone of the building at the same place to confirm that the stagecoach is parked,” she said.
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