Iowa City’s Tallest Building to Open

Walking through one of the two penthouses at Park@201, looking down at the snowy rooftops of downtown one thing is certain, Iowa city has never been seen like this before. Park@201 is a newly constructed 14 story glass skyscraper which will be opening its ground floor in early spring. Over the next few months more offices and apartments will be finished and tenants will start moving in. With the exception of the two 14th floor penthouses the rest of the apartments are near completion and more than half of the residents have already started to move in.

Park@201 was developed by Marc Moen who also built Plaza Towers in 2007. Moen owns a number of buildings in and around downtown and is pleased with the projects completion.

“Everyone was very cooperative on the move in,” Moen said. “The pace at which they got it up was incredible.”

Moen says one of the main benefits of Park@201 is what little a strain it places on the infrastructure of the city.  Water lines, police and fire department services and electricity are all provided on the site. Another advantage to the building site is that the lot is only 40 feet wide but 14 stories tall, a lot of space is added to downtown without changing the landscape too much.

Mark Moen has restored or constructed eight major buildings in and around downtown, After Park@201’s completion he hopes to get the go ahead to build the Chauncy, another  next to the blue lot. However Moen says that he doesn’t see Iowa City’s landscape changing drastically anytime soon he says Iowa City will continue slowly building up. Moen says the Chauncy will likely be his last large scale project. He also says that besides the chauncy there will not be many more high rises up in the future.

“I know people who are interested in development,” Moen said. “But not on this scale.”

    The ground floor of Park@201 will house the Buzz Salon, a long time Iowa City business. The Buzz has been located across the street from the Park@201 business site and is moving in at the beginning of March. Jodi Connolly the owner of the Buzz says the building has positively impacted her business.

“The construction has had a positive impact on my current business for many reasons,” Connolly said. “My personal favorite is the excitement for current and new Buzz stylists. In any company your people are your number one asset  so with this said Buzz has a new buzz.”

    When the building was first proposed many people were opposed to the idea, some thought it would impede views of the old capitol building others thought it would not fit into downtown. However Moen says that now that the building is up, the direction has become more clear and feedback has been mostly positive.

“As a business owner he went around and talked to all the businesses that were across the street,” Terry Dickens co-owner of Herten and Stocker jewelers across from the building said.”It won’t take up to much space, It looks like a great deal for downtown.”