The historic 134-year-old Griffin Building sits square in the middle of the central business district and had slowly fallen into disrepair, despite some small levels of office occupancy remaining. The building has an interesting history in Iowa's Civil Rights movement, with a lady named Edna Griffin holding a sit-in protest of the former Katz Drug Store's lunch counter in 1948, since they refused her service because she was black. She later sued the owner and was successful in the Supreme Court of Iowa, paving the way for desegregation in Iowa.
This building had thwarted at least 2-3 other attempts by developers to convert the building to housing, as its smaller size and lack of dedicated parking made it tough to compete with larger office building conversions that had pre-existing parking leases to utilize.
A local developer finally stepped up to the plate to secure historic tax credits and other layers in the financing stack to finally make this conversion project a reality. This building will now have around 40 dwelling units, some of which will be affordable, 2nd-floor office space, and first-floor commercial space. There is a proposal by the Kum and Go Convenience Store chain (based in DSM) to take the entirey of the first-floor commercial space to build their first urban c-story with no fuel sales.
Here is a rendering, which shows the restoration of the historic cornice work. This had been removed and painted with a faux cornice. There were also EIFS elements added to the ground floor that were obviously not historic to the building and have since been removed.
Pre-Renovation
Recent project updates, prepping the roofline for the cornice installation.
