Cedar Rapids council picks developer for Ambroz site redevelopment, but declines to endorse proposed plan

The Cedar Rapids City Council has chosen a developer and a framework of economic incentives for the redevelopment of the former Ambroz Recreation Center – almost certainly including the demolition of the existing century-old building – but stopped short of endorsing proposed plans for a four-story, mixed-use building on the property, based primarily on concerns expressed by residents near the site. Local developer Steve Emerson and his firm, Aspect Architecture, was approved unanimously by the council April 23 to take ownership and lead the development of the former Ambroz Center at 2000 Mount Vernon Road SE. The council also approved a term sheet for the project, essentially formalizing an agreement that Mr. Emerson’s firm will be the developer of the project. The former Ambroz center was built in 1920 as Buchanan School. The 18,648-square-foot school was closed in 1973, and the building was subsequently purchased by the city and repurposed as the Ambroz Recreation Center. Ambroz closed in 2016 when the city’s recreation offices were moved to the new Northwest Recreation Center, and the building has sat vacant thereafter. The city has issued four requests for proposals (RFPs) to redevelop the 1.53-acre site, but before Mr. Emerson’s proposal was chosen from two proposals in the most recent round of submissions, the three RFP’s previously issued for the site – in 2017, 2019 and 2022 – failed to gain traction. In both 2017 and 2019, redevelopment proposals for the site were submitted and subsequently withdrawn. A number of speakers at the council meeting acknowledged the need to redevelop the site, and many agreed that the condition of the existing building likely made its reuse unlikely, but most agreed that a preliminary proposal submitted by Mr. Emerson, which included renderings of a four-story building with 52 residential units, wasn’t an appropriate fit for the neighborhood, which consists primarily of single-family, craftsman-style bungalows built decades ago. “Being a direct neighbor to this site, I'd like to express my concerns with the proposal,” said Jennifer Trembath, whose home is near the Ambroz building. “The main concerns are the size and location of the building. A four-story (building) no matter where on the lot you build it, will tower over all the residents surrounding it … it will not blend in, it will stick out. It will loom over us and block out the sun from everything surrounding it.” “I'm excited about the investment in the Ambroz lot, but I don't think it's the right fit,” added neighborhood resident Maura Pilcher. “And this is not a case of NIMBYism in any way, shape or form. It is more so making sure that we are making the right investment for this community … Vernon Heights has been a stable neighborhood for generations, and what we plan to do with this site will have lasting impacts for generations. What we have proposed right now is something that was designed for the northwest side being plopped down into the core of our neighborhood. I want to make sure that we are making decisions that will have a lasting positive impact on the neighborhood, that we're really looking at embracing all the various assets that this neighborhood has to offer.” Mr. Emerson said he was part of “four teams that proposed to try renovating the Ambroz site." “We tried hard,” he said. “Nobody could make it work. And so this time around when I'm proposing an Ambroz site, it is not to save the building. I'm not against historic preservation, I'm not against adaptive reuse. I accidentally have 300 apartments downtown that are mostly in historic buildings, and they're all full. The need for housing is huge. So my choice to propose demolition of this isn't because I didn't like or I don't like adaptive reuse. It's just that this building's real hard (to repurpose).” He also noted the redevelopment process is in its early stages, and that he’s open to amending the scale and design of the proposed development. “I like the idea of integrating some of the historic elements of the school, the brick masonry, the signage,” he said. “There's one comment I heard of doing a three-story instead of a four-story. We'll look at that. The reality of it is, there's a lot of work. This is not a rush. It's looking to use the site for a very valid project. We will involve the neighborhood.”

The $17.5 million Ambroz redevelopment project is also being funded in part by a $4.5 million federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grant, already issued to Mr. Emerson, which was shifted to the Ambroz site from a previously-planned development at 520 E Ave. NW. Under the terms of that grant, at least 51% of the units in the Ambroz development must be leased to those earning 80% or less of the federal annual median income. City council members stressed that the city’s approval process for the Ambroz redevelopment project is still in its early stages, and a number of steps remain, including the establishment of an Urban Renewal Area, a formal development agreement and a required rezoning of the site. “The level of detail of the breakout of the units is not required for the federal CDBG, correct?” council member Tyler Olson asked. In response, city economic development coordinator Scott Mather said the grant only requires 51% of the units be leased to lower-income residents. “I think we want to leave as much flexibility as possible for the developer to work with the neighborhood,” Mr. Olson said. “The only issue here is the breakout of the units and the design, but we aren't approving the design today. It sounds like everybody that commented agreed that they're looking for flexibility on the unit part.” “Ambroz has been sitting there vacant,” council member Dale Todd added. “It should be no surprise that something has to happen here. None of us know what this thing's going to look like. But we take a leap of faith that by working with the developer and by working with the neighborhood, we're going to end up with a product that we're all appreciative of.” A letter submitted to the council by the board of directors of Save CR Heritage, a group dedicated to preservation of local historical structures, wasn’t discussed at the meeting. The letter asked the council to reconsider any plans that would involve demolition of the existing Ambroz building for redevelopment. “We are aware a proposal was submitted by a local developer with experience and success in repurposing historic structures that would have provided 29 units of housing within the historic school and in 1- and 2-story townhomes built to fit the character of neighboring homes,” the letter said. “The proposal on your agenda would send the historic school to the landfill and build a generic four-story complex in the middle of this more than century-old neighborhood … Please support the neighborhood and the Historic Preservation Commission subcommittee’s work on the city’s list of historic assets, and consider the proposal that would repurpose the School.” Current plans call for construction of the Ambroz redevelopment project, in whatever form it eventually takes, to begin in September 2024 and be completed by October 2025.