-Messenger file photo
The city of Fort Dodge will again take ownership of the Warden Plaza building as the result of a settlement with KDG LLC, of Columbia, Missouri, which was reached Monday evening, according to City Manager David Fierke.
-Messenger file photo
The city of Fort Dodge will again take ownership of the Warden Plaza building as the result of a settlement with KDG LLC, of Columbia, Missouri, which was reached Monday evening, according to City Manager David Fierke.
The vacant Warden Plaza in downtown Fort Dodge will soon be owned by the city government once again.
The city will take ownership of the building as the result of a settlement with KDG LLC, of Columbia, Missouri, which was reached Monday evening, according to City Manager David Fierke. The fate of the building was to be the focus of a trial in Webster County District Court, which was scheduled to begin Tuesday morning.
The City Council gave the building at 908 First Ave. S. to the firm in December 2016. The developer proposed renovating the building to create commercial space on the first two floors and about 100 apartments on the upper floors. It was projected to be a $30 million investment. But nothing ever came of those plans.
Fierke said after the city takes ownership of the building again it will begin contacting other developers who had previously expressed interest in it.
“We can finally start moving forward instead of being stalled,” he said during a Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance Meet and Eat session held Tuesday at the Community Orchard.
The city was set to go to court Tuesday to ask a district court judge to declare the building abandoned and transfer its ownership to the city. That was the technique the city used to acquire the property from a previous owner, Coralee LLC, of Oakland, California, in 2016.
Fierke said KDG LLC agreed that it would not contest the abandonment proceeding in court. He added that as a result, the city could get ownership of the building in about 60 days.
The renovation of the Warden Plaza was to be part of a major overhaul of part of First Avenue South which was also to include a parking ramp and a new recreation center. None of those projects advanced.
The eight-story building was developed by Theodore Warden, an Ohio coal mining investor. The original part of the building, constructed in 1914, consists of four stories and a mezzanine. Three more stories were added in 1916. Apartments, including a penthouse with a swimming pool, were added from 1924 to 1926. The building has housed a hotel, stores and apartments before becoming vacant in the late 1990s.
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