Progress 2017

PROGRESS 2017

POWER of

the CEDAR VALLEY Leading the CHARGE

SPARKING ideas

ENERGIZING lives

Waterloo | Cedar Falls | www.WCFCourier.com/progress

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Publisher Roy Biondi Ad Director Tara Seible Project Manager & Advertising Sales Sheila Kerns Editor Nancy Newhoff Special Sections Editor Melody Parker Graphics Designer Amanda Hansen Progress is published annually by Courier Communications and may be contacted at: 100 Fourth St. P.O. Box 540 Waterloo IA, 50704 Copyright, Progress, 2017

LEADING THE CHARGES Mayors

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TechWorks I

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TechWorks II

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Highway 63

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Root

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Advance Iowa

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Cedar Valley Makers

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Martin Brothers

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HCC Adult Learning

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Single Speed

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Waverly Utilities

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SPARKING IDEAS John Deere

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Performance Livestock Analytics

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Retention

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Waterloo Regional Airport

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ENERGIZING LIVES Made in the Cedar Valley

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Gaming industry

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Ben Stroh

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Retirement Living

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Construction

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Business Jellies

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Colorfx

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Standard Distributing Co.

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Leader in Me

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River Place

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All rights reserved Reproduction or use of editorial, photographic or graphic content without permission is prohibited.

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PROGRESS 2017

Leading the CHARGE

FRIENDS IN

HIGH PLACES Waterloo, Cedar Falls mayors forge friendly working relationship

Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart

TIM JAMISON | tim.jamison@wcfcourier.com‌

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EDAR FALLS — Two Cedar Valley cities broke in rookie mayors last year.

But while Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart and Cedar Falls Mayor Jim Brown were busy learning the ropes and leading their communities, they also found time to forge a friendship.

Hart said the bond has opened lines of communication whether it involves public policy matters, shared community interests or even personal advice on how the two fathers of school-age children can balance personal and work commitments.

“We’re both family men, persons of faith and have other similar interests,” Hart said.

Both mayors are younger than 50, replaced multi-term incumbents when they took office in January 2016 and brought government experience — Hart having served eight years on the City Council and Brown serving six years on the school board.

Hart’s wife, Cassandra, and Brown’s wife, Corrine, are both school teachers.

“The similarities between us are pretty amazing,” Brown said. “The culmination of that relationship has been a very nice surprise.

“We get together whether it’s an event like the one where Quentin’s wife spoke (at the Martin Luther King Jr. Banquet) or it’s a Chamber and Alliance meeting,” Brown said. “I love the banter back and forth between us and bragging about our spouses both being Gold Star teachers.”

Both mayors believe their cities need a closer relationship to capitalize on shared interests.

“We are in a position where we have to work together to be able to be competitive for businesses and people that want to move into our area,” Hart said. “We are competing against the entire state, and we can no longer be isolated from one another.

“From the outskirts of Waterloo to the outskirts of Cedar Falls

Cedar Falls Mayor Jim Brown

MATTHEW PUTNEY PHOTOS, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR 3

DENNIS MAGEE, COURIER REGIONAL EDITOR COURIER FILE PHOTO‌

Abigail Schwab, left, puts money in the bucket as Cedar Falls MayorElect Jim Brown looks on at the Cedar Falls Wal-Mart during the holidays. there are millions of dollars of new investment; there are many people that live in Waterloo and work in Cedar Falls or live in Cedar Falls and work in Waterloo,” he added. “Our success is tied together.”

Brown said that cooperation includes presenting a united front on shared legislative priorities, like protecting tax-increment financing as a development tool, assuring property tax backfill and growing issues related to water quality.

The cities also may look to share waste water treatment facilities as federal clean water regulations stiffen.

“It’s one of those big things on the horizon, so it can’t be ignored,” Brown said. “In my humble opinion it’s not going to be just Waterloo and Cedar Falls; it will involve a lot of communities.”

Hart said he reached out to Cedar Falls when negotiating with the Iowa Department of Transportation on what the city would receive to take over University Avenue. Cedar Falls was already reconstructing its portion of University.

“We needed to have some information to give to the state, so I called over and talked to Mayor Brown and Ron (Gaines),” he said. “They sent us over some spreadsheets about costs that were very helpful.”

Brown said Waterloo may be able to return the favor in the future.

“The reverse would be true if the (Cedar Falls) council ever makes a move on the white-water project,” 4 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart, a celebrity cook, fires up a skillet Sunday, April 3, 2016, for a guest at the annual 4-H omelette breakfast. The event was at the UAW hall in Waterloo.

COURIER FILE PHOTO

Cedar Falls Mayor Jim Brown, left, and Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart were among those attending the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber legislative reception in downtown Des Moines.

Brown said. “Waterloo is going to be ahead of us there. Where are some advantages? What are the pitfalls?”

Both cities also are participating in a “shared services task force” with representatives of local school districts, the county, Univeristy of Northern Iowa and Hawkeye Community College.

“We’re bringing those folks together and see if there’s some com-

monalities in what we do,” Hart said. “Maybe something does make sense, maybe it doesn’t. But we’re having those discussions.”

Both mayors also share an exuding optimism about the direction of their communities.

“We’re seeing development everywhere around the city,” said Hart, when asked about the greatest success of his first year.

Looking ahead this year, Hart said the city will need to tackle University Avenue planning, finish the U.S. Highway 63 reconstruction, continue revitalizing downtown, sow new energy into struggling neighborhoods and continue with community policing initiatives to build a relationship between officers and those they serve.

Hart’s greatest frustration is not having enough money to do everything the city needs.

“There’s not a shortage of great ideas,” he said. “But resources to fund those great ideas is not always there.”

Brown said his highlights last year included the job his staff did responding to the September Cedar River flooding and the successful recruitment of a $6 million Furniture Mart USA warehouse and related $1.6 million Ashley Furniture Homestore.

“It was fun being a part of that (development) right out of the gate,” Brown said.

Looking ahead this year, Brown said the challenges will be completing the reconstruction of University Avenue and tackling other street, sewer and other infrastructure projects to keep the city growing.

“Those that were here before me did a heck of a job preparing for the capital needed for the infrastructure,” Brown said. “What’s probably missing is the implementation of that.”

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TechWorks taking shape Business center is ready to market many elements PAT KINNEY pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — This may be the year the rubber hits the road for the Cedar Valley TechWorks.

The agri-industrial product and business development center is ready to market and renovate some labs as “co-working” laboratory and office space in the “Tech 1” building on the campus for firms and individuals starting businesses and developing new products, TechWorks manager Cary Darrah said. There’s ample room for additional industrial development on other floors of the building.

Concurrent with that will be the development of a new Courtyard by Marriott hotel that will go in the “Tech II” building on campus, which Quad Cities area developer Rodney Blackwell projects will be open for occupancy in July. It will house international visitors to Deere’s Waterloo operations and draw attention to the businesses and products being developed in the Tech 1 building and the adjacent John Deere Tractor and Engine Museum.

The co-working laboratory space, dubbed

MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Financial District Properties principal Rodney Blackwell shows the opening where the staircase will be for the hotel during renovations of the TechWorks 2 building in Waterloo.

“The Labs@TechWorks,” was previously oc- substantial reduction in federal funding. cupied by the National Ag-Based Industrial LuBut the fixtures left behind — the office and bricants program of the University of Northern lab space — are something Tech Works hopes to Iowa. NABIL closed in the fall of 2013 due to a market to prospective industrial tenants.

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www.wcfcourier.com/progress 5

Left: Ryan Companies construction crews work inside on renovations of TechWorks 2 building Dec. 12, 2016, in Waterloo. Middle: Renovations of TechWorks 2 building continue. Right: The Cedar Valley TechWorks lobby in Tech 1 building Dec. 12, 2016, in Waterloo, Iowa.

“We’ve only been seriously marketing it for the last eight or nine months,” Darrah said, after TechWorks made substantial capital improvements to the first two floors.

“We really are excited about this whole campus once the hotel’s built,” Darrah said. “There will be a lot of activity over there that will cause people to pay more attention to what’s going on over here. But this Tech 1 building is for innovation technology and (business) startups,” augmented by resources at UNI’s Small Business Development Center and Regional Business Center.

“And we have resources for business who want to expand,” Darrah said. “There are not a lot of physical spaces and resources for business right in the middle,” between the startup and expansion phase. “And that’s what we hope to be able to provide. These are resources you won’t find in a lot of other places.”

There’s already been some nibbles.

“We have one lease pending that’s a bio product and another lease pending that is prototyping a new engineering technology,” Darrah said.

It will complement some of the product research going on in the adjacent product-development “maker space” set up by the Cedar Valley Makers, a membership driven shared space for entrepreneurs to develop new products.

“The vision for the maker space is, as people create things and want to take it to the next step or two steps further, these are the physical spaces that could accommodate that,” Darrah said of the lab space.

The labs have varying degrees of fixtures and furnishings, installed by TechWorks and NABIL and funded by a state economic development grant.

While NABIL ceased to exist, the infrastruc-

ture is attractive to potential industrial tenants.

“This is just wired to the hilt,” Darrah said. “We had some folks come in here as NABIL was moving out and we were trying to understand what the best way to market these labs would be. They said these are better industrial labs than anything they’ve seen in the Midwest.”

Former NABIL director Lou Honary said, “With a serious reduction in federal funding, specifically earmarks, NABIL closed as of September 2013 or end of federal fiscal year. Funding was hard to come by and I was getting ready to retire and the resources on campus were limited.

So, it was decided to close the center.

“I personally believe the center served us well as it helped to create several successful soybean oil based industrial lubricants and greases that are currently on the market,” Honary said.

TechWorks is finding a re-use for that space.

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PROGRESS 2017

“The goal is these labs are helping people take their creation to another level,” — literally, to other floors of the building. “Our vision all along is we’re the physical space where those visions can take next steps,” Darrah said.

“We really are depending on, and very excited about, the attention this whole thing will get once the hotel’s built” in the Tech II building “and Deere has a training center, with restaurants.”

The Tech I building is for “innovation, education and technology,” for fledgling, startup businesses.

The Tech II building, dubbed “The Green@ TechWorks,” is being developed by Blackwell.

“Rodney has stuck with this for three or four years. Trust me, developers of much more stamina have walked away from projects earlier than he has walked away from this one,” Darrah said. “It is a cool project, and it is Deere history and he had done several projects in and around Deere.”

“The Tech II building is a big part of the entire TechWorks campus,” Blackwell said, beginning with the development of the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum. “It’s always been a collaborative project to finish the entire campus.”

The project was first unveiled by John Deere Waterloo operations general manager Barry Schaffter and University of Northern Iowa President Robert Koob in 2004. In 2007, Deere made a gift of land, buildings and technical assistance for the TechWorks campus under Schaffter’s successor, Pat Pinkston.

“The hotel’s been a journey,” Blackwell said.

“But there’s always so much work that goes into

PROGRESS 2017

these sites prior to even getting into them,” including environmental considerations, before construction bids are let. But Blackwell said Steve Dust, executive director of the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and Chamber, provided some continuity to keep the project going.

“It obviously benefited the project having Steve carry it through the entire process. It was arduous,” Blackwell said. “It was great to see the museum up and running, it’s great to see Tech I getting some serious traction; there’s already some cool things in it. And that next journey is getting this hotel open,” which will serve a lot of visitors to Waterloo Deere facilities.

“A lot of people who will come from around the world will stay right here on campus now, see the museum while they’re here.”

It’s a “boutique” hotel, being developed and tailored to a historic industrial building. It’s a painstaking process, being coordinated with the Mariott organization to meet its standards.

“We are historically trying to maintain the integrity of the campus to show off one of the largest companies in the world,” and the origins of its Waterloo tractor manufacturing operation.

It’s taking some major work. For example, floors had to be raised so hotel patrons can see out the historic industrial windows of Tech II. Since the building was originally built as a factory, the windows were set higher above the floor level so they would let in light without encouraging workers to be distracted by the the view. Blackwell now wants to take advantage of that view for the hotel. In addition, the old building has large interior support columns throughout its floors

“Getting where you could see out that window” and meet life safety and Mariott brand standards while preserving historic integrity “was quite the challenge,” Blackwell said. “It’s not as simple as pouring concrete.” However, he said, “That’s where, usually, we do our best. We hire a great architect, great property management company.

Mariott, with all the knowledge they have — and it’s really important to Mariott — all those pieces together let us work to get to where everybody was happy with the product.

“You’ll have a very cool feel to it,” Blackwell said. While it’ll meet Marriott’s standards and have all the comforts of its Courtyard properties, “You’ll know you’re in a factory building. You’ll feel that.

“The good news is that we’re on schedule” for a mid-July opening, he said. “A lot of the things that made me nervous are behind us,” including a lot of trenching and interior work and cleaning up and meeting environmental standards in dealing with an old industrial site. “We’re pretty green,” Blackwell said.

Two out lots on the north side of the property would be developed for industrial space, and two others on the northeast end of the site would be retail space.

They’re also finishing designs for a restaurant and Irish pub and a 300-person banquet facility — along with a concurrent 15,000 square foot Deere training center.

“This will be a community hotel, where Deere happens to be the largest vendor in the market, and will pay homage to what it’s all about,” with the building’s history, he said.

www.wcfcourier.com/progress 7

State’s blessing gives TechWorks a push MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Ryan Companies construction crews work inside on renovations of TechWorks 2 building in Waterloo.

Reinvestment district designation allowing project to take off PAT KINNEY pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com

WATERLOO — Instrumental in the filling out of the Cedar Valley TechWorks campus is its designation as an Iowa Reinvestment District in February 2015.

The entire project sputtered for a time but has gained new momentum through its state reinvestment district designation.

“Part of why it did stall for so long is because the federal historic tax credits went away because the National Park Service could not see the historic significance of this building,” TechWorks manager Cary Darrah said — even though the campus is a big part of Deere’s and Waterloo’s industrial history if not the nation.

“It’s hard to imagine why a John Deere original site would not have historic integrity,” Darrah said.

“When those (federal) historic 8 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

tax credits went away, we had to think of a funding mechanism for that gap. That was when the Legislature approved that Iowa Reinvestment District tool,” Darrah said. The Waterloo district was created concurrent with a convention center project in downtown Des Moines.

Iowa Economic Development Authority director Debi Durham realized the TechWorks campus also qualified for the designation, Darrah said. TechWorks was among the first three applications for reinvestment district designation, and among the first approved.

Developer Rodney Blackwell laughs about it now, but he was almost oblivious to the reinvestment district possibility when local TechWorks and GCVA officials presented it to him.

“I’m in my office ramping up — this thing takes a lot of staff — and Steve (Dust) calls me and says ‘Hey, would you help support this?’ I said, ‘Steve, I’m so busy I can’t take time to do something else, but it sounds like a great thing.’

“I really support it now!” Blackwell said. “It was kind of funny how

it worked out. It sounds like a great tool to incentivize some of these communities.”

Darrah said a portion of sales and room taxes generated in the district that would normally go to the state is reinvested into the project. The city retains its portion. “It’s going to be great for their future revenue” Darrah said.

It will contribute to development of light industrial and commercial space on outlying lots on the campus.

The reinvestment district would fund: $8 million for a business class hotel, corporate training and classrooms. $3 million for Tech I Light Manufacturing/Business Incubator/ Makerspace. $1 million for Cedar River Marina infrastructure.

It would leverage $69.1 million in new capital investment in the TechWorks campus, major elements of which do or will include: A business class hotel and restaurant with more than 156 rooms with a mix of in-house dining options.

The Iowa Advanced Manufac-

turing Center, a next-generation industrial facility for introducing and showcasing product and process design.

John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum, now open, telling the story of the history of innovation of tractors and engines in the Cedar Valley at the production site of the first John Deere tractors.

High-quality corporate training space located near the John Deere’s Drivetrain Operations facility.

Specialty retail and dining options, ranging from fast casual to high-end cuisine.

Cedar River Marina with boat sales, fuel sales, boat slips, pontoon rental and riverfront dining.

Here are projected economic impacts of the investment district: Gross taxable sales of nearly $21 million.

275,000 annual visitors expected. $2.9 million in annual food, retail and other sales generated on site or elsewhere in the region.

Supports up to 562 new permanent jobs in the state. $35.1 million increase in state’s gross area product.

PROGRESS 2017

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PROGRESS 2017

www.wcfcourier.com/progress 9

Natural makeup store grows

local roots Once online only, store expanding KARRIS GOLDEN For the Courier‌

‌W

AVERLY — On the surface, it seemed a little too easy.

A young wife and mother goes from graphic designer to makeup mogul after mixing up a natural cosmetics line in her kitchen. She’s practically an overnight sensation.

Some days, Krista Dolash doesn’t believe it, either.

“I had no idea; I wouldn’t have dreamed all this up in a million years,” said Dolash, founder of Root.

Her unprecedented success making and selling natural makeup and other products is for real; there isn’t a catch.

She started Root in her kitchen, selling products online. She just opened her third store and continues to grow.

In 2013, Dolash was a mother of two girls. When she became pregnant with her son, she became a self-described “crazy label-reader,” hyper-conscious of everything her family consumed.

She quickly turned her eye to her “natural” makeup. She soon learned anything can be labeled “natural” and, as a result, many such products are “filled with scary chemicals.”

“I began researching how to make my own makeup, using nothing more than natural products,” she recalled.

First, Dolash gave her foundation a makeover. Foundation is used to even out and conceal the user’s skin tone.

Typical ingredients in mass market brands blend chemicals, minerals, oils and pigments, including things like bentonite, titanium oxide and urea.

Armed with research on natural alternatives, Dolash created a foundation made entirely of minerals.

“It was just something I did for myself — a hobby, really,” she said. “It was just foundation.”

Not for long. Eventually, she tried her hand at other products, replacing store-bought items with her own creations.

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Krista Dolash, owner of Root, is shown in her retail location on East Bremer Avenue in Waverly.

MATTHEW PUTNEY PHOTOS, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR‌

Root owner Krista Dolash, left, works on matching a color for blush and eye shadows with production manager Jared Ehmen, right.

Root stores Root’s retail stores are located at 100 E. Bremer Ave., Waverly; 116 Main St., Cedar Falls; and 115 Dubuque St., Iowa City.

Root owner Krista Dolash measures out color for blush and eye shadows to make natural products.

Other women noticed the change, paid her compliments and asked questions. They wondered if she’d mix up makeup for them, too. They offered to pay her.

Dolash began developing a plan to turn her hobby into a business. Today, she can point to lessons she learned and glimmers of her stubborn streak.

“I refused to take a loan,” she admitted. “I couldn’t take a bank loan. I wouldn’t take a dime from my husband.

If the business failed, it would only lose money I had made and saved for it.”

To earn money to fund her makeup business, Dolash made headbands from recycled fabrics, selling them on Facebook. She was able to save enough to launch Root in October 2013 from her home. She served customers online, and such sales remain a major revenue stream.

“It has taken off in a way I just didn’t imagine,” she said. “I started with one foundation, … and now there’s other makeup, hair care, skin care and home products.”

In less than four years, Dolash scaled up from her kitchen to a production facility and downtown storefront. She opened her second store in Cedar Falls in July 2016 to test Root’s possibilities for expansion.

It worked: Less than six months later, Dolash opened a third store in Iowa City. Her staff has grown to about 30.

The meteoric rise came with a sharp learning curve, said Dolash. She realized the importance of maximizing

time and other resources.

“We used to do custom color blending, but as we grew, that became too time consuming,” she said. “It’s good to have good people in place. I had to learn to not do everything on my own.”

She works long hours and pushes herself to continue innovating. However, accepting help and empowering her team has enabled Dolash to enjoy her some of her success. At work, this includes working directly with customers, her favorite part of owning Root. At home, it means spending time with her husband, Jake, and their kids, Campbell, now 6, Holland, 4, and Duke, who will be 3 in March.

While Dolash didn’t expect such rapid growth, she has always had a clear vision for what Root would offer: honest, affordable, U.S.-made products that are organic, gluten-free and vegan.

Root has caught the notice of hopeful distributors as well as mass market brands. Distributors would place layers of separation between Root and its end users. It’s possible accepting such offers might necessitate adding things like preservatives or artificial dyes to Dolash’s recipes.

Both notions are unthinkable to Dolash. She loves talking to customers who say Root’s makeup is the only kind that doesn’t irritate their skin.

Both would likely be comprised if she allowed Root to become a big brand.

“It’s important to me to maintain a small-company feel,” said Dolash.

“We answer the phone here. We know our customers. We make our products right here in Waverly. I want to maintain that.”

PROGRESS 2017

Mid-size businesses see the big picture Advance Iowa offers some expert advice CHRISTINIA CRIPPES christinia.crippes@wcfcourier.com‌

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EDAR FALLS — No one is born a CEO. Chief executive officers come to their positions in a variety of ways, but being the boss is something many mid-size business owners never envisioned. So, instead of a business college, they often went to the school of hard knocks and got their education on the fly.

Advance Iowa Hermann offers them an alternative — get their education from experts and learn along with peers facing similar struggles. “(CEOs) become so focused on trying to take care of everyday issues that Beenken it’s hard for those owners to get a lot of other input.

They may get input from employees or family members, but they want something else. So, what we’ve been able to do with Advance Iowa is put them into an environment where they can share ideas,” said Mark Hermann, a consultant and facilitator with Advance Iowa.

The program, headquartered at University of Northern Iowa’s Business and Community Services, is currently funded with state dollars to help provide consultation to Iowa businesses with 10 to 100 employees, which have an outsized role in job creation in the state.

“The state recognized that this size of company didn’t feel a lot of the love, frankly, and they needed to, because a lot of our smaller towns depend upon those types of sized firms for job creation,” said Dan Beenken, director of Advance Iowa.

The program started with some pilot funding from the state in about 2012, and worked with a couple dozen different companies. It soon proved its PROGRESS 2017

value, and received additional funding to enhance its offerings and grow the program.

Last year, it worked with 226 companies around the state in nine different industries. It reached into 40 Iowa counties last year and expects to grow into another 20 this year. It has seven consultants, most of whom, like Hermann, have previously owned a business and been through similar struggles.

The services range from succession planning to a financial scorecard to a CEO discussion group. Hermann is a facilitator for a group of about a dozen CEOs from a variety of industries that meets in Dubuque, and he’s in the process of forming one in the Quad Cities, where he is based.

Mike Tully, CEO and president of Cedar Falls-based Aerial Services Inc., can attest to the value of the CEO roundtable group.

“It does take a chunk out of your day, but it’s worth it. For me, it’s time well spent,” Tully said. “My only complaint is that I’m not able to go all the time because of travel or other commitments or whatever, and that kind of hurts, and I feel like I’m cheating myself when I can’t make it.”

Tully said the monthly, four-hour meetings are beneficial for several reasons, but most particularly to know other CEOs share similar concerns, issues and struggles, regardless of their industry.

Though Tully is currently only utilizing Advance Iowa for its CEO discussion group, his business is the sort of ideal image of the companies the program serves.

With 45 employees, it’s been in Cedar Falls for 50 years. It’s on its third generation of employees — though not family owned — and Tully bought the company with three other partners in about 1999 to help keep the company local. He didn’t come in with experience running a business; he was simply an Aerial Services employee.

“The biggest issue that I think these folks struggle with is the fact that … no one is born a CEO,” Hermann said. “You have to learn about all the things that are needed in order to run your company, and that is an ongoing process for the entire time you own that business, from day one to the day you leave or it closes.”

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‘Maker space’ taking shape PAT KINNEY pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com‌

‌W

ATERLOO — The Cedar Valley Makers are setting up shop in a big way on a floor of the Cedar Valley TechWorks near downtown Waterloo.

Armed with a couple of goodsized grants and a boatload of goodwill donations, the nonprofit group has accumulated an eclectic array of production equipment, ranging from a laser cutter to welders to metal lathes.

They’re fitting out their “maker space” on a floor of a former John Deere production building, the “Tech 1” building at 360 Westfield Ave., for inventors, entrepreneurs, industrialists and crafters. They range in age from people in their early 20s to retirees.

They’ve signed up 20 paid members so far and they want to get more.

The initial goal is about 100. Toward that end, they’re planning coffee open houses and other public events to encourage folks to putter, play and produce in the maker space.

They’ve spent the past few months

COURIER PHOTO

Danny Laudick is shown alongside a piece of fabrication equipment at the Cedar Valley Makers Space in Waterloo. “fixing a couple of the kinks,” said Danny Laudick, one of the original “makers” and talent development coordinator for the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and Chamber. “We’re still getting some of the equipment set up. We just recently got the machine shop to the point where people

CALL (319) 233-3731 TO SPEAK WITH A SALES ASSOCIATE OR VISIT www.STRATEGIC-IMAGING.COM 12 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

can use it.”

People are hearing of the operation by word of mouth and stopping in.

“We had a guy come in, he’s a weld engineer for John Deere. He just wanted to become a member.

But then he’s been taking names and numbers; he’s going to be offering some welding classes. He had kind of an education background as well.

So we’re just starting to see people coming in, looking to get involved.”

Cedar Valley Makers Inc., created about a year ago, is pulling together a metal shop, wood shop, electronics lab and 3D printers on about 5,000 square feet of space on the third floor of the Cedar Valley TechWorks building.

They secured a $20,000 matching grant from the McElroy Trust and an account through the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa. In August, the organization also received a $50,000 grant from the Black Hawk County Gaming Association to purchase equipment for the maker space.

The equipment is open to use by artisans, crafters, inventors and manufacturers who would pay a monthly fee.

The “maker space” — a concept happening in other locations around the country — would be open to all ages and skill levels, and it’s hoped the cooperative atmosphere would generate a synergy of creative minds that could lead, potentially, to new products, new companies and new jobs for the area.

The monthly membership is $25 a month for individuals during a start-up “beta” period. The Makers also have talked with local smaller

manufacturers about donating scrap materials and other items to work with.

The space is already being used for a range of activities. “We are talking right now with a company who wants to use the laser cutter for product development because we can offer access to them cheaper than it costs them to lease a laser cutter,” Laudick said. “And then members are just working on custom craft jewelry. Another is working on a bicycle frame.

Everything from craft to product development.”

He noted some companies also are interested in involving their employees just for the sake of giving them a place to practice hobbies as a kind of quality-of-life amenity.

Laudick said the Makers also are on consultation with local schools and exploring the possibility of getting some of its skilled-retiree members to work with them and involving local school robotics teams in assembling their projects.

“There’s a world of opportunities,” Laudick said, including putting on product-development workshops utilizing members with skills in that area, or new-product photography as tool for marketing new products.

Or, maybe a “community-build” day inviting people to come and try out equipment with donated raw materials. Or putting together kidfriendly project kits for parents to bring their children to come in and tinker with.

Laudick also is involved with the Mill Race project of developer Mark Kittrell along State Street in Cedar Falls. Entrepreneurs in that project may be able to help Cedar Valley Makers Space members in marketing new products.

“We hope to bring some that community side to it, build some of those relationships between people to realize there’s really no reason you can’t develop your product,” Laudick said.

Open shop hours are 5 to 9 p.m.

Tuesdays and Thursdays and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Individuals can stop any time during open shop hours for a tour. New member orientations are currently held every Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

More information is available online at cedarvalleymakers.org, on the organization’s Facebook page, emailing CedarValleyMakers@gmail.com or by calling 427-2030.

PROGRESS 2017

Martin Bros. expands to meet demand State-of-the-art warehouse now fully operational ANDREW WIND andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com‌

‌CEDAR FALLS — Danny Johnson dug through one of the boxes of tomatoes that filled a pallet near the loading docks at Martin Bros. Distributing.

He inspects the quality of produce that comes off the trucks, ensuring it meets standards to be shipped to the final destination. That could be a school, restaurant, health care facility, nursing home or college.

The pallet arrived through one of the nine new docks that are part of a 77,000-square-foot state-of-the-art warehouse expansion, which opened in October. The facility in the Cedar Falls Industrial Park has grown to 362,000 square feet with the addition.

Johnson could immediately see the benefit of the new space.

“It’s a lot more efficient,” he said.

“We can organize things by temperature zones, we have more room now. We can put product where it needs to be.

“It was all in good zones, but we’re able to customize it more,” Johnson explained. “Little changes make a big difference.”

Space in the warehouse was at a premium when the expansion was completed.

“By the time we moved into this, we were really tight in the current building,” said Ethan DeWall, the company’s warehousing director.

The 17-year employee noted growth has been an ongoing factor in recent years, reflecting an increasing number of customers. “This is the seventh build we’ve done since I’ve been here.”

The most recent addition, at a cost of $16 million, was the largest for the company in terms of dollar value.

The company was founded in 1940 by brothers Roy and Glenn Martin, starting in their parents’ Cedar Falls garage and later relocated to a warehouse on South Main Street. It moved to the industrial park in 1969.

Overall, there are more than 660 people working for Martin Bros. today, which is still a family-run business. That includes 150 employees in the warehouse and 170 truck drivers.

“We’ve had continuous growth of our work force, kind of to match up with our customer growth,” said DeWall.

Among their customers are the UniPROGRESS 2017

Ethan DeWall, director of warehousing, in the new addition at Martin Bros.

Distributing.

MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR‌

versity of Northern Iowa, the Univer- tivating lights only when someone sity of Iowa and Iowa State University. walks into an area.

But business has grown well beyond Additionally, Martin Bros. recycles the company’s home state and in- huge sheets of plastic shrink wrap that cludes regional distribution of products for a number of restaurant chains such as Pizza Ranch and Godfather’s Pizza. Martin Bros. has become one of the Midwest’s largest food service distributors.

“We’ll send out about 105 trucks a night to parts of 11 states,” said DeWall. The company is shipping “65,000 cases a night, give or take.”

The warehouse now has 45 loading docks, and the expansion created more food storage space at the facility.

Temperature control is important to maintaining quality of the perishable goods Martin Bros. receives.

For example, said Johnson, the produce quality inspector, “There’s an enzyme in tomatoes where, if it goes below 50 degrees, it loses its flavor.”

Around the docks, the thermometer is kept at a chilly 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Other zones are 28 degrees for fresh meat, 45 degrees for produce that includes potatoes and bell peppers, and 60 degrees for produce like tomatoes and onions.

The company strives to be environmentally friendly in its operations.

Highly efficient LED lighting is used throughout the facility. “We started that in 2012,” said DeWall. Sensors help limit energy costs, as well, ac-

are used to stabilize pallets stacked with boxes of produce. The company also recycles other materials it uses such as cardboard, pallets and paper.

www.wcfcourier.com/progress 13

New center will expand Hawkeye services ANDREW WIND andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — Hawkeye Community College is raising its profile downtown as plans are made to begin constructing a new urban campus.

The $12 million adult learning center will be highly visible from U.S. Highway 218, just to the south, as a 45,000-square-foot three-story building. It will transform a block between First Street and Mullan Avenue with Jefferson Street to the north that has been empty since the former Waterloo Bowl-In was demolished in 2002.

“This is going to be a wholly new landscaped downtown area, so it’s going to be really beautiful,” said Linda Allen, Hawkeye’s president. College officials have budgeted $8 million in voter-approved, taxpayer-backed bond funds for the project. The remaining money will be raised through grants and a capital campaign.

Hawkeye’s main campus, where students can enroll in certificate programs or earn an associate’s degree, has been on the rural southern edge of Waterloo for most of its 50-year existence. But the college has long served adult education students with noncredit programs through the Metro Center, south of downtown at 844 W. Fourth St., and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, at 515 Beech St. on the east side.

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Corey Gevaert teaches a math class at the Hawkeye Community College Metro Center in Waterloo.

“This is my dream project,” said Allen. It will allow the college “to create the kind of learning environment and support” needed by adults who are earning high school equivalency diplomas, learning English or building employment skills. Allen believes the facility will take Hawkeye’s services “to a whole new level” — including expansion of credit programs aimed at adult learners.

After a contract is approved by the Board of Trustees, construction will get underway this spring. Officials hope to open the new center in the fall of 2018.

Originally conceived as a twostory building, the center’s third floor and 5,000 square feet of space were added during the planning process.

Along with classrooms and a computer lab, the third floor will contain an art gallery and space for community events.

Adult basic education, English language learner and citizenship classes will be offered on the second floor. Classrooms will be designed for what’s known as technology-enabled active learning. Students will use bluetooth equipped laptops with multiple monitors mounted on the

walls, allowing for groups to work together online.

Back at ground level, a student-run coffee shop with its own entrance on Jefferson will be open to the community. The shop, also expected to serve some food, will provide practical experience for students enrolled in Hawkeye’s hospitality program.

The building’s main entrance faces a parking area along Mullan. As people enter, they will be ushered into the “welcome center” — a processing area to register for classes and sign up for transportation, food and housing services.

Some services will be available on the building’s ground floor. Students will be able to enroll their infant to preschool-aged children in the Head Start child care center, featuring a self-contained playground.

A health clinic also will be open to students on the ground floor.

Several training programs will be offered on the ground floor, as well, in a computer numerical control machining lab and two large certified nursing assistant classrooms. The spaces will allow Hawkeye to expand its Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training program already being offered at the Metro Center. I-BEST students receive instruction in adult basic education or English language skills while simultaneously taking CNC machining or CNA courses.

SingleSpeed putting yeast and hops to new use Former downtown bakery is reborn as craft beer brewery AMIE STEFFENEICHER amie.steffeneicher@ wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — If you’re wondering how renovations are going for a new brewery opening inside the old Wonder Bread building, here’s one way to think about it: It takes Dave Morgan about eight months to put in one window.

There’s measuring each unique window cutout, getting energy-efficient plans from the window manufacturer, sending those plans to a couple of different governmental entities to make sure the windows are appropriately historic, then sending 14 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

the approved plans back to the window manufacturer for changes before the windows are able to be made and shipped to Waterloo.

The SingleSpeed Brewing Co. owner also has a commitment to sustainable construction: He’s working to get his entire facility LEED certified and as energy-efficient as possible — which isn’t easy when you’re also doing a historic renovation.

The timeline, Morgan stressed, hasn’t changed: He planned to have the beer hall portion ready to train staff in March and ready for customers sometime in April. A beer garden outside will open when the weather turns warm.

If Morgan’s only concern for his new SingleSpeed beer hall and distribution center in downtown Waterloo was to get it up and running and making

money as quickly as possible, he surely would not have picked the asbestos-laden, termite-ridden, 90-yearold Hostess Wonder Bread plant that had been neglected since Hostess went bankrupt and closed it in 2012.

But even before the renovation began, Morgan could see beyond the cracked plaster and boarded-up windows — and he knew plenty of other people saw its potential, too.

Groups like Friends of the Waterloo Wonder Bread Building had been pressuring the city of Waterloo to save the building from being demolished since the city bought the building from Hostess in 2015. They were hoping someone like Morgan would bring the building back to its glory days, saving it from the fate of so many other historic buildings in Waterloo.

That’s a lot of added pressure on any business opening, even for a seasoned business owner like Morgan.

With the potential to sit 300 at a time, and brew up to 12,000 barrels of beer per year, it’s also the biggest venture he’s undertaken.

A new research and development area gives space to new kinds of beer SingleSpeed has wanted to try, like sours made with Iowa yogurt. And the increased brewing capacity has now allowed them to distribute beers to new areas — Morgan has plans to talk to people in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Davenport and Dubuque to begin introducing SingleSpeed to “most of eastern Iowa” by late spring.

“We hope we make Waterloo and Cedar Falls proud by being the beer ambassador,” Morgan said.

PROGRESS 2017

Waverly Utilities plugs into telecom services KRISTIN GUESS kristin.guess@wcfcourier.com‌

SAVE THE DATE

‌WAVERLY — The city of Waverly officially has plugged in to become a “gigabit” city.

With high-speed internet, enhanced digital cable and digital telephone services, Waverly residents and businesses are able to take advantage of speeds up to 1,000 megabits per second, thanks to a recent $13 million project

by Waverly Utilities.

“The average connections speed in the U.S. is 15Mb, which makes our services 65 times faster than the national average,” according to Mike Litterer, COO/director of operations.

The fiber infrastructure has the capacity for even more bandwidth if a business requires services greater than 1,000Mbps/1Gbps.

Crews finished installing more than 100 miles of fiber-optic cables last summer, and the telecommunications services were made available

PROGRESS 2017

July 1 to the more than 10,000 homes and businesses in and around Waverly.

“The biggest underlying factor for building a communications utility was economic development. ...

If you don’t have good internet access, you can’t run a business.” Litterer said.

“Fiber services differentiates us from other communities when marketing Waverly, Iowa. Fiber and high-speed internet services may tip the scales in our favor when a business wants to relocate or expand in Waverly.”

The goal was to have 600 customers in the first six months. They now have more than 1,200 residential and commercial accounts on board.

Users will be able to surf, download and upload data faster than the national average with prices lower than the standards of competitors, according to Jeff Magsamen, director of telecom services.

MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Vince Bauer-Fisher, a fiber technician with Waverly Utilities, works on isolating a cat5 cable to help update a home to better service that is now available in Waverly.

“We’re the only one in the state that provides symmetrical ... which means our upload and download speeds match,” Magsamen said.

The additional services prompted the utility to add nine new employees in the last year, for a total of 35 employees.

Established in 1904, the community-owned munici-

pality provides electricity to more than 4,600 customers in and around Waverly.

Based out of 1002 Adams Parkway since 1967, Waverly Utilities changed its name two years ago from Waverly Light and Power to reflect its diversified portfolio of services.

In 1993, Waverly Utilities became the first public system in the Midwest to own and op-

erate wind generation.

Since then, WU has been positioning itself to accommodate future growth in technology and power.

Last year, the utility began construction on a new substation — which cost around $2 million — located near Wartburg.

“Power isn’t necessarily created in the community you’re in,” Litterer said.

Electricity is shipped to Waverly via transmission lines at 69,000 volts. The electricity hits a substation, which drops it to a lower level down to around 12,500 volts, which is then sent out to places in the community, and then a smaller transformer will take the voltage down to what a typical house can use, which is only about 120 volts.

A third transmission line into the city is scheduled to be finished in June, which is when the final connection will be made to the transmission system.

2017

ECONOMIC LUNCHEON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

Special Guest Speaker

Presented By

Ernie Goss Sunnyside Country Club

1600 Olympic Drive, Waterloo

What is the Economic Luncheon?

This annual event is hosted by Courier Communications and Community Bank & Trust where guests are invited to listen to some of the nation’s top economist and speakers. Enjoy lunch on us while you are educated on what is happening in today’s world as well as locally. RSVP is required. More details to come! www.wcfcourier.com/progress 15

SPARKING ideas

LONG-TERM INVESTMENT PAT KINNEY pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com

W

Julian Roby helps attach the cab to the tractor chassis containing engine No. 2 million at the John Deere Tractor Cab Assembly plant in Waterloo.

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

ATERLOO — What weighs as much as four topline pickup trucks and has a gas tank the size of a compact car?

If you live in Waterloo, or more particularly work for John Deere in Waterloo, you know the answer to that question.

It’s one — just one — of those big-boy John Deere tractors that roll out of the assembly plant on East Donald Street. That’s more or less common knowledge. What may not be is the “big-boy” investment Deere has made in new-product research and development and physical facilities improvements over the past three years.

“I would say from 2013 to 2016, at least a quarter of a billion dollars worth of modernizations and changes,” said Dave DeVault, general manager of DeVault Deere’s Waterloo operations.

That’s on top of the $1 billion invested in the 10 years before that.

Much of the physical improvements over the past year has involved reconfiguring operations at the East Donald Street plant for the production of the new models, DeVault said.

“Over the last two years we were introducing the ‘9 RX,’” a new four-track version of the company’s 9000 series tractor. The 9000 is “the most varied model we offer today,” with four-wheel, two-track and four-track models. “We have to be able to build all three of these down the same line. What we’ve been doing the last two years is getting ready to introduce these varied models.”

Changes also were made to meet “Tier 4” emissions control standards.

Modernizations also were finished at the Product Engineering Center in Cedar Falls. “Of course there’s smaller incremental changes on a continual basis happening inside the shop,” he said.

“We are continuously modernizing and upgrading our equipment to keep in front of the technology curves,” he said. “It’s a different game than it was a decade ago.

“We’re going to continue to reinvest according to what product program we’ve got going on. We are continuously updating and upgrading the tractor models,” DeVault added. “In any industry, if you’re not growing

and continue to enhance your products through technology, you’re not going to be around long.

Think about your car today. Even an ‘inexpensive’ car is decked out with all kinds of electronics. Used to be a heated seat was an unthought-of thing and now it’s commonplace in a car.

There’s a parallel to be drawn there. “Our customers getting out of a $55,000 pickup truck that’s got all these bells and whistles on it and they get into one of our tractors. And there’s a little difference in price, so you want to make sure the experience is at least as good, if not better.” The days of the steel-seat tractors are gone, he suggested.

Deere support figures in to the future of the Cedar Valley TechWorks, where the company plans to locate a training center, and the continued development of downtown Waterloo and the entire metro area. “We’re there to help,” he said. “If you think about 15 years ago what downtown looked like and what it looks like today, people wouldn’t have believed that could be possible.”

That development includes the cooperation between Waterloo and Cedar Falls.

“It’s really nice to see,” he said. “When I left 10-12 years ago (on another Deere assignment) and came back, to see the lines blurred between what Cedar Falls and Waterloo have become, that, to me, is a testimonial of the community recognizing that growing together and thriving together is the way to have a prosperous community.

“It’s amazing the transformation that’s happened,” DeVault said, particularly the TechWorks campus, located on a former portion of Deere’s downtown facilities where he previously worked.

The adjacent Grand Crossing housing development “is awesome the way that’s transformed,” he said.

“Downtown on Fourth Street, Hawkeye (Community College) coming out and building right there, the SportsPlex , that whole area in five years will look totally different than it is. Than it ever has been,” along with other downtown improvements such as SingleSpeed Brewing Co. setting up in the old Wonder Bread building.

He expected some Deere employees will take advantage of the housing downtown, particularly if they work in that area. “I’d be suprised. Pretty short commute if they’re working downtown,” he quipped, “if they want to walk, ride a bike or skip their way to work.”

Deere continues to partner with HCC, the University of Northern Iowa and Wartburg College in Waverly for employees and 40 to 50 different colleges from around the country for summer interns.

“As we continue to reinvest in our community through the employees, they come from many, many places. And we have been very fortunate to continue to benefit from some very talented individuals,” including locally.

That includes an attention to diversity and inclusion in Deere’s 5,000-plus employee Waterloo workforce, as well as companywide. “We have the data on the demographics of our employees,” he said, but it’s more than a numbers game; a variety of contributions to the end product are the key in a global marketplace. “We recognize that the more diverse of a thinking process you can have, or the more diverse of thoughts and experiences you can have as you’re working to bring the greatest tractors in the world to the marketplace, the better everything is. When you think through the PROGRESS 2017

dynamics of the world you serve, that’s where that diversity of thought really helps out.”

The metro area has continued to meet the challenge then-Deere Waterloo operations general manager Mike Triplett issued to the metro area some 15 years ago to make substantial improvements to justify Deere’s redevelopment of its facilities and reinvestment in the community, beginning with the “renaissance of downtown Cedar Falls” that spread to downtown Waterloo and the rest of the community.

Deere and its employees continue to give back to the community, ranging from charitable contributions to volunteer work. “This last year we had almost a 50 percent in our increase in volunteer hours, over 21,000 hours,” he said, not all of which is counted.

It includes sitting on community committees and involvment with service agencies, including, for example, packaging meals for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank. “That’s become a blast for everybody,” he said, and a friendly competition among work shifts and facilities. More than 127,000 meals were packaged in one day. Deere personnel also help with local robotics teams and competitions through the schools, as well Junior Achievement and Partners in Education programs.

Some of the areas John Deere Waterloo Operations’ employees participate include: Support for Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) education and career path outreach.

Support for the Leader in Me. Engineers Week classroom visits in February.

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, also in February.

STEM Day at the Deere Engine Works in March.

Support for Project Lead the Way programs in both Waterloo and Cedar Falls schools.

The Cedar Valley STEM Festival in November.

Student elementary mentoring, including Women in STEM. Partnering with UNI on several initiatives.

Cedar Valley United Way contributions.

In 2018, Deere will mark the 100th anniversary of its coming to Waterloo with the purchase of the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co., maker of the “Waterloo Boy” tractor. “It’s not early” to plan that celebration, DeVault said. “We plan on celebrating with the community,” and hope to cultivate community participation in that celebration.

The company plans an “internal celebration” with employees and families within the various plants starting in March 2018 with a communitywide celebration anticipated in June 2018.

Deere plans to draw from some of its activities during the 90th anniversary celebration in 2008, but one asset available now that was not present then is the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum adjacent to the TechWorks site — where DeVault notes, the original check Deere issued to purchase the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co. is displayed.

“We are extremely proud to be part of the Cedar Valley,” DeVault said. “That heritage and history of what we collectively have gone through over that 100 years is pretty humbling. And we all have learned a lot in that century. It means the world to us to be part of this community. We’re very, very thankful that we’re here.”

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Julian Roby lowers the cab to a tractor chassis at the John Deere Tractor Cab Assembly plant in Waterloo Dec. 12, 2016.

bentonsg.com www.wcfcourier.com/progress 17

Next wave

AGTREPRENEURS KARRIS GOLDEN For the Courier‌

‌FLOYD — Dustin Balsley is among the many millennials who have proved they can work from anywhere.

As a web-commuter, Balsley worked for West Coast technology firms. This allowed him to remain loyal to his first employer: his father, Brad, owner of Balsley Farm in Floyd.

Fellow Osage High School graduate Dane Kuper followed a similar path. He too worked remotely in technology development while managing his own Northeast Iowa beef production operation.

As a result, Kuper and Balsley were geographically positioned to take part in an agri-technology revolution. Together, they founded Performance Livestock Analytics. The company provides precision, cloudbased livestock operations manage-

ment tools to owner-operator beef producers.

PLA’s flagship product is Performance Beef, a real-time analytics mobile application for agricultural managers.

“The average U.S. cattle operation is about 1,200 head,” explained Balsley, COO. “You have to make a certain amount off your livestock, and it’s close every year for the smaller operations. We want to improve those odds.”

They founded the company in 2015, which proved a volatile and vulnerable time for cattle producers. Prices trended up across most categories for much of 2014 and ended on a high. All industry sectors posted mostly record profits, according to Beef magazine, and analysts cautiously predicted more of the same for 2015. This was based largely on past performance

MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Dustin Balsley, founder of Performance Livestock Analytics, shows off the Performance Beef Operating System on a tablet that monitors the feed mix for beef cattle in Floyd. Below: Balsley uses the Performance Beef Operating System. and estimated data.

U.S. beef cattle prices experienced the largest one-year drop on record throughout 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Iowa was among the top five states for large capacity feedlots, according to Beef USA statistics. Many family operations shuttered due to losses — a staggering blow to an industry that

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PROGRESS 2017

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PROGRESS 2017

judges success by close margins.

It could have made the sons of family farmers shy from agriculture.

Armed with degrees from Luther College and Iowa State University, respectively, Balsley and Kuper had a firm footing in the technology sector.

Instead, they surveyed the beef production industry and decided to be part of a “pivot,” said Balsley.

“We live in a society that cares about what it eats,” he explained. “(Dustin and I) looked at what was happening and asked, ‘What can we do?’ We realized that, theoretically, it would be great to scan a barcode and have all the information on where your food comes from — a real farm to fork initiative.”

The Performance Beef mobile application is the first step. In its initial release, PLA on-boarded a long wait list of producers who believe the unique agricultural technology could help them organize and leverage their data.

“You need to run your farm like a business,” said Balsley. “That’s hard to do because successful beef producers are out with their livestock.

We created advanced tools … in a system that makes it easier to collect data on the go.”

Even in the best conditions, records management is slow, time-consuming and sometimes inaccurate. It’s difficult to take record-keeping tools into the field — even tougher to access and sync with web-based resources. As a result, farmers record data later, sometimes relying on estimations, averages and memory. Some may wait long periods to document information, which can lead to omissions, inaccuracies and delayed access to data.

In such cases, a farmer’s records don’t necessarily account for the nuanced variables like harsh weather conditions, which can dramatically affect everything from diet to weight.

Performance Beef combines data on agricultural statistics, meteorological conditions, health and diet information, operations records and accessibility in a cloud-based mobile application.

“A farmer and his advisers can load in all his data,” Balsley explained.

“The more records the farmer loads in, the more he’s able to monitor the health of his livestock.”

The app also improves records accuracy, allowing farmers to do real-time record keeping. The farmer also can grant access to veterinarians, agronomists, nutritionists and others. This enables them to upload

and share data during visits instead of waiting until they return to their offices. This in turn allows a beef producer’s entire team instant access to the latest, most accurate livestock data. “(Dane and I) both grew up on livestock farms,” said Balsley. “We both have the tech background, and we both worked for data science companies. There wasn’t anything like this for livestock — nothing that merged a farmer’s data about his stock with the vet records with the climate information and other tools farmers use.”

After founding PLA in Osage, PLA moved its headquarters to the Iowa State University Research Park in Ames. There, PLA can take part in the Ag Startup Engine and ISU Startup Factory and utilize interns. Kuper and Balsley work from both Ames and their farms.

In 2016, PLA won the top prize at the Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Venture Competition, including a $25,000 Proof of Commercial Relevance grant.

Next up is Cattle Krush, a real-time profit management application. Kuper and Balsley also have developed proprietary tools that complement Performance Beef by enabling app users to bypass manual data entry directly from their beef lots.

The partners main goal is to strengthen U.S. cattle production, said Balsley.

“We’ll stay here in the beef feed lots until we have done this job right,” he said.

This includes convincing Performance Beef users to contribute anonymously to a storehouse of livestock benchmark data. This resource will supply users with tracking and comparison data for the broader cattle market.

“Farmers guard their data fiercely, which is understandable,” Balsley noted. “You can be an island with your own little research park, or you can use anonymous benchmarks of the entire research park and use that data to find trend lines and patterns.

Overall, having as much information as possible lets us get the best prices, which advances the industry as a whole.”

Many cattle producers understand the value in building the benchmark cache, he added.

“They see that we can use this information to drive everything to return on investment,” Balsley said. “It will be impossible to feed the world if producers aren’t financially stable. To feed the world, you have to feed the farmer first.” www.wcfcourier.com/progress 19

Coasters coax local talent to return Campaign trying to draw workers to Cedar Valley JEFF REINITZ jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — A rustic winter scene with a log cabin and the message “More time living.”

A penguin soaring through the clouds with the caption “Be who you want to be.”

The images graced coasters in local establishments over the holidays, just in time to catch Cedar Valley expatriates returning home to visit family.

The goal behind the coaster campaign was to entice people to ponder moving back, said Danny Laudick, director of talent solutions for the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and Chamber. He said the coasters, which included a third with local landmarks, were an immediate hit.

“It was meant for people to connect with that while they are home for the holidays and remind them of everything that’s here,” Laudick said.

“We had someone call and ask if she could get the first one of the series because they took the other two out to her son who lives somewhere on the coast, and he wanted a set of all three so he could frame them,” Laudick said.

The drink mats are part of a larger initiative to retain and recapture local talent that began when the Alliance started rebranding. This involved consolidating the organization’s Cedar Valley Life website, a Facebook page and an online job bulletin board under the moniker Live The Valley.

“We were talking about the quality of life, talent attraction side, and how do we make the Cedar Valley the type of place people want to live? So it’s not just marketing the community, but how are we actually improving the quality of the community and the types of resources people look to in a community when they are going to move there,” Laudick said.

The plan came together last year, and the Alliance started promoting in areas where University of Northern Iowa and Wartburg Col20 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

UnityPoint Health Prairie Parkway

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER‌

Drink coasters designed by Scotty Russell. lege graduates tend to relocate after earning their degrees.

“You kind of take for granted what’s going on in your backyard sometimes. A lot of times you move away, and you don’t think maybe there is new stuff going on,” Laudick said. He said the online content is designed to show off some of these changes and help the community tell its story.

During the summer, the Alliance focused on outside talent visiting the Cedar Valley in the form of internships. It sponsored socials for interns and students, using settings like Lost Island Water Park.

“You’ve got people from all over the world and country coming to work here over the summer as interns, and we wanted to get them together, let them network, build relationships and show them the type of community we have here,” he said.

This included collaboration with Main Street Waterloo to highlight urban living and nightlife activities.

The initiatives appear to be working. Besides the popularity of coasters, some 200 people showed up for the first summer social, which drew people from 20 states and five counties.

The Alliance keeps an eye on its website traffic, and the jobs board sees about 6,000 views a month, Laudick said.

“About 50 percent of the people looking at the jobs are people from the Cedar Valley, and the other 50 percent are from other big Midwest metros and places that have UNI alumni and Wartburg alumni,” he said.

The Alliance is in the process of creating a tool kit to help employers promote the community when they interview prospective employees from other areas.

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PROGRESS 2017

TAKING TO THE SKIES Waterloo airport sees ridership rise JEFF REINITZ jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — More people took to the skies through the Waterloo Regional Airport last year, and flights at the airport saw an increase in reliability.

“Local and area air passengers are becoming more aware that flying out of Waterloo saves money as they do not have to pay for an added fuel expense and the higher cost of vehicle parking,” said Airport Director Keith Kaspari when the numbers were released as part of the airport’s End of Year report in early February.

The airport totaled 25,322 outbound passengers in 2016, which was an increase of 338 passengers over

2015. It was the highest annual passenger total since 2008 and marked the second year in a row ridership averaged more than 2,000 passengers a month.

The airport’s air service partner is American Airlines, and the increase came, in part, from additional flights on the weekends and a drop in cancelled flights.

“The increases in passenger numbers from CY-2016, fewer cancellations, improved on-time reliability and competitively priced airfares shows that American Airlines is providing an excellent product for Cedar Valley passengers,” Kaspari said.

Only 20 flights of the 693 scheduled flights were cancelled in 2016,

MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Workers load baggage onto an airplane at the Waterloo Regional Airport. compared to 35 of the 675 fights in 2015, according to the airport numbers. It also represented the lowest percentage of cancelled flights since 2012.

Airport officials have set a goal of 2,500 passengers a month for 2017.

They also are planning to launch some improvement projects in the coming year.

This includes Federal Aviation Administration funds slated for removing a portion of a taxiway on Runway 18-36, repairing a heaved section of a joint that connects the end of an

original Runway 12-30 with its extension and undertaking some airfield painting.

Iowa Department of Transportation funds are planned for adding energy efficient windows to the airport’s Fixed Base Operator’s building and updating heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment. A hangar will be getting roof work and gutter repair and LED lighting inside.

“I feel if we can get all that done, it will make for a busy summer construction season and allow us to continue to focus on building ridership,” Kaspari said.

A Worldwide Leader in Protein, Cedar Valley Strong

Tyson Fresh Meats is the world’s leading provider of protein, including pork, chicken and beef. The Waterloo facility produces fresh cuts of pork such as boneless loins, tenderloins, hams and cuts of ribs, all of which are sold to retail, wholesale and foodservice customers throughout the world. Construction on the plant began in spring of 1988 and plant operations began May 3, 1990, under the IBP brand. Tyson Foods, Inc. purchased the plant in 2003. The facility currently has an annual payroll of more than $88 million.

Our company and our team members are active in the community, donating food, time and financial support to many Cedar Valley nonprofit organizations and events. We partner with the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, United Way and the Salvation Army by raising funds annually through Tyson’s philanthropic effort, Powering the Spirit, which aims to end childhood hunger.

Beyond Tyson’s many community contributions, our greatest asset are our 2,600 team members and the diversity they bring to the community. The many cultures found in our halls enrich the lives of everyone on the Tyson team, and in the Cedar Valley.

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ENERGIZING lives Josh Wallace welds a stainless steel axle at Jerald Sulky in Waterloo.

GLOBAL REACH Area businesses have footprints across globe META HEMENWAY-FORBES meta.hemenway-forbes@ wcfcourier.com

WATERLOO — While the obvious world player from the Cedar Valley is John Deere, with its green tractors rumbling across prairie and lowland, plenty of other Cedar Valley businesses make their mark well outside Iowa’s borders.

If you’ve ever knocked in a testy 5-foot bogie putt, odds are you plucked the ball out of a cup produced by Standard Golf in Cedar Falls. The company produces a wide range of products for golf courses on every continent, save for Antarctica.

And anyone who’s been to a high school ball game or watched a college game on TV, be it football, basketball or even soccer, there’s a chance the team uniforms were made in Waterloo by Powers Manufacturing.

“Our distribution is all 50 states,” 22 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

BRANDON POLLOCK PHOTOS, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Randy Kollman, Jr. shapes a pony cart shaft at Jerald Sulky in Waterloo. said Powers CEO Mark Weidner. “We are a licensee for Under Armour, and a lot of the product is Under Armour brand manufactured by us.”

Prior to that, the company worked with Nike for more than a decade.

While the majority of Powers’ business is in the U.S., the company does

distribute some products to Canada and may expand its international reach.

“We’ve been doing some exploring to Turkey,” Weidner noted.

Powers has been manufacturing high school and college sports uniforms in Waterloo for more than a century.

Weidner attributes the company’s

longtime success to producing topnotch products.

“We’ve been very good at the quality we produce. We are known for that,” Weidner said. “Particularly football.

It’s a tough sport that needs good production, good materials for the intended purpose. When players are being pulled and dragged down, those uniforms have to hold up. Durability has really kept us at the edge.”

Other companies in the Cedar Valley are making their mark outside of Iowa as well. Martin Brothers of Cedar Falls has trucks criss-crossing the country, delivering food products to schools, restaurants and health care facilities around the Midwest and beyond.

Bertch Cabinets distributes stock and custom cabinets of all shapes, sizes and colors from coast to coast. All told, the Cedar Valley has a solid business footprint across the globe.

“We like the Cedar Valley. We really do,” said Erik Lee, who co-owns the Jerald Sulky Co. in Waterloo with his wife, PROGRESS 2017

Rolls of fabric line storage shelves at Powers Manufacturing in Waterloo.

Shelli. “It’s awesome. It’s just the right size. It has everything you need here and a bunch of stuff you want. There’s a lot of cultural stuff — cool stuff at the Gallagher Bluedorn. And there’s so much great food. We really like it here a lot.”

The Lees moved to Waterloo from Minnesota in early 2016 when they acquired the 118-year-old horse carriage company. Jerald Sulky is “the last commercial manufacturing facility for horse-drawn show vehicles on the planet,” Lee said.

The company distributes the stylized carts across the globe, with broad dis-

tribution across Europe, South Africa and Australia. “We’ve even shown up in Namibia,” Lee said.

Jerald Sulky employees are highly skilled, crafting carts that dominate the world stage in the industry.

“In the industries that we serve, we make the cover of trade magazines 3040 percent of the time,” Lee said. And in the horse racing business, “we were behind every major winner for a really long time. Nevele Pride held records for 30 years. We were the cart behind that.

It’s always been a Jerald in the winner’s circle.”

Becky Norman applies finish trim to a cart at Jerald Sulky in Waterloo.

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Game industry growing in Cedar Valley CHRISTINIA CRIPPES christinia.crippes@wcfcourier.com‌

CEDAR FALLS — Danny Laudick was interested in the software game development industry. He studied computer science at University of Northern Iowa for awhile. And he grew up here.

Still, it wasn’t until he took a job in a completely different field that he learned the Cedar Valley had its own growing gaming industry.

“I was looking at all the game development companies, in California, Austin, Texas. It never crossed my mind that there might be some local game development companies,” said Laudick, who is now the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and Chamber’s director of talent solutions.

But, to be fair, the industry here is just beginning to blossom.

The game development industry in the Cedar Valley started in 1998 with Phantom EFX, which later became part of the international gaming company Scientific Games.

But then it wasn’t until 2012 that a second company Marmoset — a support industry that makes art tools and software used in game development,

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Nick Cash at work at Jam City in Cedar Falls. as well as other industries — expanded into Cedar Falls. Then, in 2016, gaming development company Jam City, followed suit.

“We’re just getting to that point where our stuff is about to go out in the wild, and we’ll see how we did, but we’re all pretty excited about it.

It’s always fun to put new games out there,” said Nick Cash, lead software

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engineer at Jam City.

The Cedar Falls branch of Jam City are all engineers, who have helped put together a mobile game that’s about to launch called Snoopy Pop that is like an already popular Jam City game Panda Pop but uses the “Peanuts” characters.

“I think it’s very surprising for people to know that two of the biggest mobile publishers in the world, basically, have offices here,” said Cash, who had previously been recruited to work at Scientific Games but left to help Jam City launch locally.

He stressed, though, the scale is different. Scientific Games has well over 100 employees; Jam City, at least here in Iowa, has five. But both have room to grow here.

Why Iowa?‌‌

With Laudick’s work now, he knows there are a few ways to grow industries. It’s about a location’s talent pool, the ability to grow and attract more talented people, as well as having the infrastructure.

Silicon Valley, for instance, has a density of engineers, designers and others eager to work in a tech industry like game development. But in 1998, there were four Cedar Falls people interested in going from graphic design to computer game development, and thus, a small, local talent pool formed Phantom EFX. Jam City started the opposite of its predecessor. Where Phantom grew locally and then became part of one of the biggest game development companies, Jam City was founded out west and then, thanks to local ties, expanded into the Cedar Valley.

But part of why both stay, and why Jam City located here, has to do with

infrastructure.

And in game development, that means high-speed internet. There, Cedar Falls has a bit of a reputation. In fact, former President Barack Obama visited Cedar Falls in January 2015 to highlight it as Iowa’s first city to offer 1 gigabit per second internet service.

Cash said from talking to his San Francisco colleagues, it’s abundantly clear they can’t compete with Iowa’s internet. He once tested the difference with a colleague there and learned a software upgrade that can kill half a day at their offices takes about seven minutes here.

“The cost of living compared to LA, or San Francisco, or wherever is not even comparable in a lot of ways, and here, plenty of space, great internet, lower cost of living, great trail systems; there’s a lot of good reasons to live here,” said Cash, who grew up here and went to UNI as well.

Building an industry‌‌ Laudick works across industries to make sure the Cedar Valley is a place that can grow and attract talented workers. But in the game development industry in particular, Laudick knows better than most the challenge of raising awareness that high-tech companies exist here.

So, he worked with the Alliance to partner with area businesses to host an event in the Cedar Valley: a sort of speed-game development get-together called Ludum Dare. The event took place this spring at Mill Race in Cedar Falls.

The events usually take place online, and development would still happen using computers, but by holding a live event, they hope to raise awareness about the industry by attracting would-be developers.

“We’re looking for artists; we’re looking for composers, anyone with musical talent; any programmers; any game designers, just whoever it’s going to be, get them in the space, preferably get them to meet each other,” Cash said. “If you’re passionate about games, this is a chance for everybody to kind of get together.”

Cash made clear the event was an important way to get game developers throughout the Midwest together to keep growing the industry locally.

“It was a networking event, in that way, but our goal was really mostly to build games and have fun and hopefully meet some people,” Cash said.

PROGRESS 2017

Ben Stroh recycles Waterloo retail sites Entrepreneur transforms 2 area shopping centers TIM JAMISON tim.jamison@wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — Ben Stroh built a business empire by recycling transformers. The Waterloo entrepreneur is now working to transform his hometown by recycling two retail centers that had fallen into decay.

Stroh is the driving force behind Crossing Point Plaza, which turned the mostly empty Kmart Plaza at Crossroads Center into an attractive retail development housing Planet Fitness, Carlos O’Kelly’s, Tokyo Bay Japanese Steakhouse, Kwik Star, Freddy’s restaurant and other businesses.

Across town, Stroh is partnering with the city and UnityPoint Health to replace the blighted Logan Plaza strip mall and surrounding land with new development dubbed North Crossing.

The former strip mall at U.S. Highway 63 and Donald Street has been razed, and work on new medical office buildings and retail stores are slated to begin soon. Former Waterloo Mayor Buck Clark, who prodded and then worked with Stroh to get both projects moving, said the city was fortunate to have a local developer take them on when other potential investors were reluctant to “get off the dime.”

“Ben is a Waterloo boy and he’s very dedicated to Waterloo,” Clark said.

“He’s done good for himself but has remembered his roots. He remembers where he came from and is reinvesting back into the city.”

Stroh grew up in Waterloo’s Highland area and attended East High School. His father, Bernie, was a bar owner, worked nearly three decades at Quality Mat Co. and served on the city’s Community Development Board, while his mother, Marsha, was a nurse.

“I’ve been in the scrap business basically since high school,” he said. “I had a water meter business and then did transformers.”

Stroh eventually formed A-Line E.D.S. in 1997, a company that decommissions transformers and related electrical equipment, sells grain-oriented steel to international markets and has operations in Arkansas, Flanders, S.D., and Tonkawa, Okla.

“We work coast to coast,” Stroh said during a recent interview. “My brother was in New York last night.

PROGRESS 2017

INVISION ARCHITECTURE

An artist’s rendering depicts the renovated former Logan Plaza area with a mix of medical and commercial development. This perspective is looking east from Logan Avenue/U.S. Highway 63.

My other brother’s working in Denver today. We’ve got work going on in Chicago, St. Louis and in Texas, all simultaneously.”

Stroh began investing profits in commercial real estate, the first major acquisition being the Odd Fellows building at Fourth and Main streets in downtown Cedar Falls in 2005.

“A lot of times people don’t appreciate how costly some of these renovations really are,” Stroh said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for all Jim Walsh has done in this town” with historic building renovations in downtown Waterloo through JSA Development.

“I don’t quite have the temperment to go through all the grant processes they do,” he added. “They still spend a tremendous amount of money rehabbing this stuff.”

Stroh learned more about construction when A-Line E.D.S. served as its own general contractor for an expansion at its Waterloo plant. But his confidence to invest in Crossing Point Plaza also involved a change in philosophy at City Hall.

While he may be camera shy — note his photo doesn’t accompany this article — Stroh isn’t afraid to speak his mind.

“We had a lot of places in city government where they were more interested in telling you want you can’t do instead of how to get it done,” he said.

“Some people were reluctant to say some of the things I said, but I didn’t have to play by those rules and was able to speak more openly.

“A lot of that attitude has been addressed, and we broke through some barriers there,” he Stroh added. “Over the last many years I think the city of Waterloo has come around and has become more business and development friendly.”

A decision by the city to provide incentives to make project viable got

Crossing Point Plaza off the ground.

“I know it took some courage from City Council members to do that, but I think the results have been good and getting better,” Stroh said. “Already people forget how ugly it used to be out there.”

Efforts to revitalize the 1960s-vintage Logan Plaza area were more complicated, working with the city, mall owners, UnityPoint Health and others to make it happen.

“Mayor Clark got the ball rolling and kind of convinced me that the city

would stand up and help get this thing done,” he said. “Mayor (Quentin) Hart picked up the ball and made sure that we got it done.”

While the City Council stepped up with incentives essentially designed to cover the acquisition and demolition of Logan Plaza and surrounding land, Stroh was required to bankroll the project and be reimbursed over eight years.

“Getting a deal done there was very difficult,” Stroh said. “It was frustrating, but it was fun in hindsight. People at UnityPoint have been great to work with.”

The project is also a labor of love for Stroh, who grew up near Logan Plaza and remembers frequenting the hardware store there and getting ice cream at the Maid Rite restaurant on a school trip. UnityPoint is already committed to locating several medical office buildings at the former Logan Plaza site while several other entities were signed or close to agreements for projects.

“It’s already unrecognizable out there now,” Stroh said. “But by this time next year somebody driving down 63 that hasn’t been to Waterloo for a few years is going to be amazed.”

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Boomers rewrite rules for

RETIREMENT Area communities transform modes of senior living MELODY PARKER melody.parker@wcfcourier.com ‌

‌Baby Boomers may have been surpassed by Millennials as the “nation’s largest living generation,” according to Pew research, but that doesn’t mean they’ve lost the power of getting their own way. This time, Boomers are bending, breaking and rewriting the rules for retirement and senior living.

In fact, Readers’ Digest lists six ways Boomers and their must-haves are altering the landscape of senior living: 1. If pets aren’t welcome in Mom and Pop’s new digs, they’ll pass; 2. Retirement facilities with vacation-style amenities, lots of services and choices; 3. More space to live, play and entertain; 4. Fitness centers, gardens to tend, volunteer opportunities, social wellness activities and events and other non-sports ways to relieve boredom and stay out of the rocking chair; 5.

Urban housing options that emphasize walkability in both distance and ease of walking; and 6. A wired world to stay connected — Wi-Fi for Skyping with grandkids, posting photos to Facebook and, of course, online shopping.

“The future is not a gated community for seniors,” said Western Home Communities CEO Kris Hansen. “Boomers are certainly not going to tolerate doing the things we’ve always done and in the environment we’ve always done it. We want to create an environment that responds to their needs and defeats ageism in our community.”

Recognition of that truth — and a desire to meet the needs of this population — is true at Friendship Village, New Aldaya and other senior living communities.

Hansen says Western Home Communities has been a “catalyst” for senior living advancement for a number of years. Now they are in the thick of a major $42 million project that includes Prairie Wind, an independent living facility with 75 apartments that opens in June, skilled nursing cottages 26 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR‌

Workers build the wellness and community center for the Western Home Communities independent living community called Prairie Wind last winter in Cedar Falls. and the centerpiece, Jorgensen Plaza for Well-Being.

The $12.5 million plaza will feature an aquatic center, restaurant and pub, fitness center, salon, large community center, restorative suites and numerous other amenities that also will be available to the public. It is expected to open in January 2018.

“This isn’t just for our residents.

We’ve always done our part in serving the greater community, and we’re focused on aging services and future needs. We are evolving … and we’ve had to change our mission statement.

Instead of fulfilling lifestyles for seniors, we are creating fulfillment for all stages of life. What that means is, we’re all working together in a collaborative way to create a seamless continuum of care for the Cedar Valley,” Hansen said.

Amanda Lynch, wellness coordinator for Western Home Communities, will continue researching “how to find that sweet spot of programming for our residents and the 55-plus folks in the Cedar Valley. It’s amazing and exciting that there will be one place for them to go and do a multitude of things from working out, having therapy, sharing social time with their friends and family. Jorgensen Plaza truly will encompass all the dimension of wellness — health and fitness, spiritual and social,” she enthused.

At Waterloo’s Friendship Village, the mission statement has been a

front-burner issue for Executive Director Lisa Gates. “We’ve refined our mission statement and restated our core values, and that affects all of our facilities. As our legacy employees — people who’ve been with us for many years — are retiring, we’re discovering a need to instill understanding of our culture and values in the younger generation of employees,” she explained.

The new Cold Creek Café at Village Place, which also features an outdoor patio for dining, opened in the spring.

In addition, the Cove’s lounge is getting a patio with a view of the lake on the Friendship Village campus. Meal plans are becoming more flexible, as well, because of new options outside the traditional dining room.

Friendship Village will observe its 50th anniversary May 1, 2018. Plans are being made for how best to celebrate the event, as well as options being developed for possible renovations and expansion. Now, as in the future, Gates says they are “reacting to the wishes and wants of current residents and being responsive to changes in attitude about retirement and senior living care from Boomer-aged retirees.

“Our vision is to continue to provide facilities, amenities, events, activities and programs that feed the mental, physical and spiritual needs of our residents and future residents, and that set us apart,” Gates explained.

Millisa Tierney, executive director and CEO at New Aldaya in Cedar Falls,

said, “There are several plates spinning, as usual, at New Aldaya as we continue to build and enhance services for our residents and the community.”

New Aldaya recently received licensing for a new catering kitchen, adding to their event and catering services for a range of events, including wedding receptions, anniversary celebrations and business seminars.

Additionally, the wellness program has been officially branded. ‘Live Better Your Way,’ is open to anyone ages 55 and older to use exercise equipment and participate in a range of classes, including Tai Chi, yoga and boot camp.

“That was rolled out in January 2016, and we’ve had a successful first year, tying together the benefits of living better, living well and staying well,” Tierney says. “New tracks of educational classes are being ramped up.”

She describes New Aldaya as a pioneer “in sticking our foot into the puddle of the blended community model” with New Aldaya Lifescapes’ Main Street, which includes a pub and café and plenty of live entertainment.

“Feedback from community users shows they really like the environment and easy access and parking,” Tierney explained. “Throughout New Aldaya, we adjust to needs and things residents and visitors would like to see to keep it fresh and consumer-centric.”

She acknowledges “tremendous” change in post-acute and extended care health options, which has required some repositioning to address those issues. “I’m also pleased with growth in employee health participation. There was huge growth for 2016 in health and wellness for the people who work here.”

Plans are in the development phase for new housing options to offer potential residents, and two smaller capital campaigns are moving ahead for remodeling the chapel, a $300,000 update and an entry garden and outdoor entertainment space, projected at $200,000. That space will have a water feature and be accessible from the chapel or Main Street.

PROGRESS 2017

Construction

running on all cylinders MATTHEW PUTNEY, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Waterloo, C.F. see balance across all building areas PAT KINNEY AND TIM JAMISON pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com tim.jamison@wcfcourier.com

CEDAR FALLS — Construction activity in Waterloo-Cedar Falls has been balanced across all areas, and the area is headed for another solid year, locals officials said.

“We’re making strides with development and redevelopment in every sector of the city,” said Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart. “That’s a positive sign.”

Waterloo enjoyed its second-best construction year in history when it racked up $127.5 million in building projects during the fiscal year ending last June 30, while housing starts also hit an all-time high.

Cedar Falls Building official Craig Witry said his city tallied $151 million in new construction during the 201516 fiscal year.

“Last year was a huge record,” Witry said. “A good year for Cedar Falls is $100 million.”

Midway through the current fiscal year, Cedar Falls has $55 million in construction underway, with more projects in the wings.

“So the pipeline looks good for the second half of the year,” Witry said.

“We’ve got a lot of projects in play PROGRESS 2017

right now. It’s good. I’m happy.”

Major Cedar Falls commercial projects include Western Home Communities continued construction on the next phases of a $42 million wellness and community center with independent living and skilled nursing cottages on 16 acres west of Prairie Parkway and north of the Cedar Falls Wal-Mart.

From July 1 through Dec. 31, 82 permits have been issued for new homes, including houses, duplexes and town houses.

In all, 82 permits were issued for new homes from July through December 2017. “That’s a good number,” Witry said — up from 51 at this same point a year ago. “We’ll exceed 100 without any doubt” for the fiscal year.”

Those 82 new homes have a total valuation of about $17.6 million — an average of almost $215,000 a house.

The 51 permits issued for the same period a year ago had a total valuation of nearly $12.6 million — about $247,000 a house.

Among major projects still in the works, the new Bess Streeter Aldrich Elementary School is waiting in the wings, as well as two major projects at North Cedar and Orchard Hill

Construction crews work on a house in the Arbors development in Cedar Falls.

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elementary schools. While those projects don’t directly contribute to the tax base, Witry said they drive housing growth as new homes are built near the schools for young families wishing to send their children there.

Among major commercial projects, the so-called retail “power center” where a new Hobby Lobby store is located continues to add tenants, adding Ross Dress for Less and a Dollar Tree store. In addition, a large amount of multi-family housing is being constructed along Ashworth Lane along Greenhill Road.

“I haven’t seen a January as busy since I’ve been here,” Witry said.

Other major projects include $1.1 million for Slumberland’s renovation of the old College Square HyVee building as that store relocates back into Cedar Falls along renovated University Avenue, from a to-be-renovated stretch of the same road a few miles east in Waterloo. A permit has been issued for South Dakota-based Ashley Furniture’s new $7.2 million warehouse on 2615 Capital Way in the Cedar Falls Industrial Park. Company officials also are looking for a site for a new retail store in Cedar Falls.

Cedar Valley Properties has a $1.5 million commercial/residential proj-

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MATTHEW PUTNEY PHOTOS, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR

Hobby Lobby is one of many new storefronts in Pinnacle Prairie’s Power Center in Cedar Falls. ect at 923 W. 23d St. at the former location of a house just east of University Book & Supply in the College Hill business district. A separate project is proposed at 2125 College St., on the approximate former location of the Great Wall restaurant, destroyed by fire last April.

Also, Rose Co. has taken out a permit for a $1.5 million projecct at 1304 Technology Parkway, not far

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thru 28 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

from the Mudd Group complex of offices colloquially known locally as “Muddville.”

Waterloo Community Planning and Development Director Noel Anderson was particularly pleased with a boost in new housing construction in Waterloo.

The 99 new single-family homes started in the last fiscal year were the most the city recorded in modern history, with 43 going up in the Crossroads Estates subdivision, 18 in Audubon Park, 16 on Ravenwood Circle and others scattered across the city.

“The recent housing surges we’ve seen have been a blend of people looking to build new homes in Waterloo and developers answering that need with new subdivision development,” Anderson said.

A city program granting three years of tax abatement for new homes played a part, but the city needed developers to create new lots

for builders. It also worked with Waterloo Community Schools on infill housing lots at former school sites.

“That helps the overall residential fabric of the city in terms of new construction, helping to stabilize and improve existing neighborhoods as well,” Anderson said.

Some major commercial projects, which drove up construction totals in the last fiscal year, are still underway today, including $20.3 million renovation of a former John Deere Westfield Avenue building into a Marriott Hotel and conference center; a $14.2 million addition at the ConAgra Foods plant on Midport Boulevard; a $9.5 million Grand Crossing Condominiums, a four-story, 67-unit development at West Jefferson Street and Mullan Avenue downtown, and a $10 million historic renovation of the KWWL-TV Building at 500 E. Fourth St. Waterloo had only issued construction permits for $34.8 million for the first six months of the current fiscal year, July through December 2016. That’s below the $38.9 mllion in permits at the same point last year.

But Anderson believed a $100 million year was still in sight.

“I think we still have a very good year ahead of us,” he said. “We have over $25 million already announced in projects at Logan Plaza, Love’s Travel Stop, Taylor Veterinary, Kwik Star at Ansborough, Black Hawk Gymnastics, the Grand Crossing Phase II and some other housing projects in downtown Waterloo.

“Add to that the unannounced projects we are working on, which is a good mix of smaller commercial and industrial projects as well as some larger industrial projects, and we should be aiming right at our $100 million mark goal,” Anderson added.

on solid foundations

Construction crews build a house in the Arbors development in Cedar Falls.

PROGRESS 2017

Business Jellies bringing entrepreneurs together AMIE STEFFENEICHER amie.steffeneicher@wcfcourier.com‌

‌INDEPENDENCE — T.D. Holub started Garden Oasis Farm, a diversified vegetable farm, in Coggon in 2013 as a hobby. But he quickly realized he wanted to grow the business.

“I was trying to progress that into a full-time operation and was able to do that a couple years ago,” Holub said.

It’s a success story he shared with other entrepreneurs in Winthrop last fall at a networking event called a “Business Jelly.”

Though the others in attendance had different business concepts than him, Holub said he found value in talking with Buchanan County business owners like himself.

“I got to meet some people I hadn’t really known about,” he said. “We discussed some different things about what I’ve learned along the way, what some other people have learned when they’ve started out.”

That’s just what organizer George Lake wants to hear.

Lake, director of the Buchanan County Economic Development Commission, brought the concept of Business Jellies to Buchanan County in March 2016.

“The whole concept is that we’re trying to establish an entrepreneurial networking association in Buchanan County,” Lake said.

The monthly sessions (which cease in the winter months) rotate around to different cities in the county and feature a local speaker discussing the successes and challenges of running their business.

“People are sharing marketing ideas,” Lake said. “Some people just want to get out of the office and just work in a relaxed environment, a different environment, and others are coming because they’re struggling with their own business, or they’re wanting to start a business and hoping to draw inspiration from others.”

Lake said the Buchanan County Business Jellies are very much an informal gathering. Free coffee, cookies and wi-fi are provided at the 9 a.m. to noon sessions.

“They’re really kind of fun,” he said. “And what’s nice is when disparate people that don’t know each other come together, and they find out the things that they share.”

PROGRESS 2017

COURTESY PHOTO

Owner and farmer T.D. Holub poses with chickens on Garden Oasis Farm, which he started in 2013. Holub spoke about starting and running his business at a Buchanan County Business Jelly, an occasional networking event for entrepreneurs.

Thereasa Hager, co-owner of owners have a need to get out and Hager’s Roasting Co. in Quasque- network. ton, spoke about how she markets “The biggest issue with a business her coffee and brought samples. But is selling it,” said George Lake. “You she also found value in what others brought up during the discussion.

“It was more laid back, just kind of a really neat environment, but I learned a lot, though,” Hager said, noting she was planning to contact someone who had mentioned they could help her redesign her website.

That sort of cross-promoting and assistance can help businesses grow, Lake said.

“If we can identify those people just starting a business, identify their needs and issues, it’s my job to step up and see what we can do to assist them and to get them up and running,” Lake said. “These Jellies are one way we can do that.”

The idea of one speaker beginning a larger discussion made it unique for a networking event, said Holub.

“It kind of made it different, maybe more interesting too,” he said. “One person can get the talk going and the other attendees can kind of fill in the blanks, ask questions, get the whole room talking — which is what it’s all about.”

The Buchanan County Business Jellies have typically attracted just a handful of attendees — though Lake said he’s seen up to 30 at one event.

But Lake said he expects the Jellies to grow, if only because business

might have the best widget in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you might as well close up shop — and you probably will.”

www.wcfcourier.com/progress 29

Colorfx continues to roll out printing ‌W success in Waverly

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Nolan Hinders checks the quality on a run of sale posters at Colorfx in Waverly.

KRISTIN GUESS kristin.guess@wcfcourier.com‌

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AVERLY — Waverly employees are helping Colorfx maintain its position as the largest commercial printer in Iowa.

A property of the Des Moinesbased Mittera Group, Colorfx has three facilities — two in Des Moines and the other in Waverly.

About 40 employees are located in Waverly.

“They’re doing well,” said William Werger, Waverly’s economic development director. “I think they’re a very successful operation and a great part of our community.”

Colorfx formerly was Waverly Publishing, which has operated for more than 100 years. The Mittera Group purchased the company in 2007. The company then purchased longtime Waterloo-based commercial printer Pioneer Graphics Inc. in 2015, which was combined with Colorfx’s facility in Waverly.

Harry Matternas, general manager of Waverly and Urbandale operations, said 14 employees from Pioneer decided to join the Colorfx team in Waverly, and all were given employment opportunities.

“It’s not our largest facility but a very integral part of our operation,” Matternas said.

Under the Mittera Group — J.B. Kenehan, Mittera Creative Services, Rock Communications and Colorfx — all companies work to provide multi-platform marketing services and materials to clients throughout the U.S., includ-

ing direct-mail, data and analytics, digital marketing, graphic design, photography and videography.

“We are the sum of all of our parts,” Matternas said. “Each shop has a unique capability, unique flavor.”

Waverly’s facility includes digital capabilities, sheet-fed presses as well as bindery, folding, cutting and stitching machines. A fourcolor 55-inch printing press allows the company to produce large sheet sizes with heavier stock.

According to Matternas, Colorfx is a one-stop shop for retail advertising and marketing services.

“If you bring us a project, we can help you develop your target audience, design the piece, print it, mail it, augment that with web design, social media, anything and everything our customers need from a communications stand point,” he said.

Recently Colorfx has acquired a Xeikon 9800 commercial printing press, 360-degree photography capabilities and a Konica Minolta digital press.

Waverly contributes to product sales for local, regional and national customers, including HyVee, Kum & Go, Scheels, NHL’s Chicago Black Hawks and the University of Northern Iowa.

“For us the Midwest and Iowa is just a great business climate. The location is very centrally located and allows us to support and deliver to a broad range,” Matternas said.

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Destiny with diversification Standard Distribution ‘distills’ its way forward CHRISTINIA CRIPPES christinia.crippes@wcfcourier.com‌

‌CEDAR FALLS — Consolidation was the name of the game for beverage distributors when Standard Distributing Co. sold out much of its business in 2000. Now, as the third-generation family owners have worked the past 17 years to transform the business into a warehousing and logistics company, the name of the game is diversification.

“Our growth was really limited by the suppliers,” said now-Standard Distribution Co. controller Larry Herzog of the beverage company.

“By moving into warehousing, what we’ve been able to do is really distill our own destiny by being able to go after all different kinds of clients, and … we have a range of local, regional and national clients that use our services.”

The history of Standard Distribution Co. in the Cedar Valley dates back to its founding by Stanley Seroke as an alcoholic beverage distributor right after the end of Prohibition in 1936. Seroke’s daughter Joan Poe found it bittersweet to sell off the company’s beverage business in 2000 to focus on sister company Crystal Distribution Services.

But since that time both Crystal Distribution and Standard Distribution Co. have found success in warehousing. The former focuses on cold storage, and the latter focuses on warehousing and value-added services.

The Poe family still owns both businesses. Standard Distribution is owned and operated by Stan and David Poe, and fourth-generation family Andy Poe and Katy Poe Harbaugh are actively involved in Standard Distribution Co. today.

“We focus on diversifying as much as we can, so we’re always looking to diversify our business, which you can see from our beginning in the beverage industry to where we are today,” Andy Poe said.

Where they are today is a rapidly expanding business that works with PROGRESS 2017

10 different industries, including agriculture, pharmaceutical, electronics and retail.

It has four locations in Cedar Falls, including a newly constructed building in the Northern Cedar Falls Industrial Park with access to a railroad spur the business expanded into in May 2015. And this past August, it returned somewhat to its roots by once again having a location in Waterloo.

“It’s kind of a sentimental location for us,” Herzog said of the Westfield Avenue location. “(Standard Distributing) originally began in that neighborhood of Waterloo back in 1936, and so it’s like coming home. It’s not the exact place; that’s been taken over by urban development long ago, but it’s kind of fun to have moved back into Waterloo.”

In its 17 years after leaving the beverage industry, Standard Distribution has grown from little more than 100,000 square feet to a footprint of 600,000 square feet in its Iowa locations, with another 100,000 right across the state’s border in Omaha, Neb. It works with 15 to 30 companies annually and currently has about 85 employees. But due to its value-added services — the company also provides labeling, kitting and retail display assembly, among others — its employment fluctuates based on needs. The company has had as many as 120 employees.

Herzog attributes some of the company’s growth to the fact that throughout its history it has listened to its customers, made adjustments as necessary and then hoped to be the right business for another business’ needs at the right time.

And they expect they will continue to grow into the future.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to grow and diversify even further. We’re not afraid necessarily to take risks in that regard,” Harbaugh said.

“We have some things up our sleeve,” Herzog added.

More information about the company, its offerings and its history, is available at www.standarddist.com/.

COURTESY PHOTOS

Standard Distribution Co., with locations in Cedar Falls and Waterloo, has been growing into a warehousing and logistics business, after leaving its original mission as an alcoholic beverage distributor in 2000.

Standard Distribution.

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Leader in Me Growing part of Cedar Valley’s school culture ANDREW WIND andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com‌

‌WATERLOO — Student leadership and learning were in the spotlight during a recent community celebration at Kingsley Elementary School.

For a group of kindergarten students, that meant being ready to greet people and hand out pictures they had colored as they walked into a classroom. What did the brightly colored picture of the sun mean to kindergartner Keochky Dorsainvil? “To bring your own sunshine to school, because you have to have a happy face on,” said the boy.

In a first-grade classroom down the hall, Tayler Junker was sitting at a desk applying what she has learned about the seven habits through Kingsley’s Leader in Me initiative.

She read a brief scenario about two friends disagreeing over playing a game or watching a movie and applied Habit 4, Think win-win. “I wrote, ‘The best thing is movie first and then games,’” said Junker.

Later, visitors gathered in the gym for a short student-led program, which ended with fifth-graders ringing the room to sing a song.

The second annual Leadership Day followed a month where children chose either the seven habits, the seven continents or the seven wonders of the world during an “interest club” and spent time daily learning about the topic. “It’s kind of like a break to learn about something you’re really interested in,” said Principal Amber Dietz.

Leader in Me has become part of the culture at Kingsley and 20 other Cedar Valley schools in recent years.

Created by Utah-based FranklinCovey, Leader in Me introduces students and teachers to the principles of Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and helps to put them into practice.

The effort locally was started and has been coordinated through the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber, a regional economic development organization. Officials there believe Leader in Me helps students develop skills which are essential for the workplace but not explicitly taught in school settings usually.

Leader Valley, the educational arm 32 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

Tonio Jackson dances and lip syncs to a song during the annual leadership day at Kingsley Elementary School Waterloo, a Leader in Me event.

MATTHEW PUTNEY PHOTOS, COURIER PHOTO EDITOR‌

First-grader Zoe Ratchford shows the ways the whole body can listen during a Leader in Me event at Kingsley Elementary School in Waterloo. of the chamber, oversees work with educators and schools. It is also heading up the $7 million Create Great fundraising campaign to help expand and sustain the initiative in the Cedar Valley. So far, the campaign has raised just under $2 million.

Half of the funds would be used for implementation and operating expenses with the other half put into an endowment. “That endowment will provide support to the schools for ongoing operational expenses,” said Melissa Reade, Leader Valley director.

She noted the process of securing the funds can be slow, as potential donors often need to learn about Leader in Me’s benefits. “Businesses, especially, want the assurance this is an investment in their future work force,” said Reade.

At St. Patrick School in Cedar Falls, students develop leadership skills by taking on job responsibilities they are assigned through an application process. Students hold leadership roles at recess, lunch or in the office. They raise and lower the flag each day or serve as greeters as children arrive in the morning.

“They have to apply for it and commit to it,” said Principal Bev Mach.

Students who don’t fulfill their obligations get replaced.

Fourth- through eighth-graders also can apply to be on the eight-member student lighthouse

team. Pairs of students work on action teams to plan events or oversee activities during the school year.

Teacher Janae Gross, who facilitates Leader in Me and the lighthouse team, said school staff formulates ideas for the action teams and then student members determine among themselves which assignments to take.

Mach said students are learning life skills through their responsibilities.

“I just see a change in them of taking more ownership and wanting to do more,” she said. “I think it became their school and their mission and goals.”

John Deere’s Matt Meyers sees the benefit of the skills students are learning. The manager of business improvement for tractor cab assembly operations also serves on the Leader Valley Council. He highlighted such skills as communication, event planning and management as some of the skills Leader in Me develops.

“The leadership skills they get through this program and some of the soft skills, it’s impressive,” he said.

“The skills that are being taught to kids are exactly what are missing in education today.”

The council includes both education and business members. It guides the process of implementation at schools and helps to raise money for the initiative. John Deere is one of the companies that has financially contributed to the campaign.

“When I heard that John Deere made the donation and was looking for someone to serve on the council, I volunteered,” said Meyers. He was already familiar with the initiative through his daughter’s involvement at school.

Reade said Leader Valley has engaged the University of Northern Iowa’s Center of Education Transformation to complete a third-party evaluation of Leader in Me in local schools as it continues to raise money. That evaluation, which will continue until the end of the year, will look at the initiative’s impact on things like school culture and various student measures.

In the meantime, Leader Valley is building its capacity through FranklinCovey to train school staff locally.

“They’re piloting this with us,” said Reade. “They call it their transfer of knowledge model. There’s very few entities like us.”

Reade and Teri Trask have been certified to facilitate workshops and are being trained as coaches. The workshops and coaching are ways to train school staff on using Leader in Me. “We’re leading them through this framework to help them be successful in their implementation,” said Trask.

“It’s all about what are the needs of the school, and what can we do to support them.”

“Both of these are ways to extend our investment,” said Reade, noting they will be able to provide more continuity than a trainer who is here for a limited period of time.

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BRANDON POLLOCK PHOTOS, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Work continues at the 250 State construction site in Cedar Falls.

River Place kicks into high gear in downtown Cedar Falls PAT KINNEY pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com

CEDAR FALLS — This is the year massive River Place residential-commercial development along State Street and the Cedar River in downtown Cedar Falls really hits its stride.

That’s according to Audrey Dodd, who helps handle leasing and the overall development of the $43 million, multi-buiding project conceived by her father, tech-company entrepreneur Mark Kittrell.

Major developments the public will see this year include: 250 State, a residential building right along the Cedar River front and tailored to empty-nester baby boomers, who want to downsize their living space after with their families raised, as well as snowbirds.

That four-story building is going up now and is anticipated to be completed this year.

A new residential-commercial PROGRESS 2017

building at East Second and State streets, facing East Second and just east of businesses in the 100 block of the Main Street Parkade.

Work on that building will start this year, after the parking lot is reconfigured to maximize parking spaces there. That building has expanded in size to include a 300-person ballroom/reception/meeting space.

A plaza area will be created between the East Second and State building and the existing building at 200 State. It is anticipated to include a stage and possibly could double as skating rink in the winter. It would be a gathering space for community events. Work on the plaza area, a now environmentally cleared former scrap yard, would also begin this years.

“In summary, we are starting building three of four,” Dodd said. The first two buildings in the project, 200 and 300 State, are built and 100 percent oc-

cupied. “300 State our original property” built in 2013, “has been really successful. We noticed the population that flocked to that building right away were professionals new to the area, who were really already familiar with downtown living and attracted to that kind of lifestyle. That building has been occupied since a few months after it opened.”

It attracted professionals about age 30 and above, on average. The units are about 1,000 square feet and rent about $1,375 a month.

“It’s typically a young couple or a traveling professional — a lot of people from Deere and the hospitals,” she said, and employees in the Technology Park wing of the Cedar Falls Industrial Park.

The second building, 200 State, opened in September 2015.

It has studio apartments with a smaller floor plan. “We really aimed that one at kids who were

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graduating out of UNI,” she said.

“We geared this building to younger professionals” in hopes of “retaining some of that younger talent in the Cedar Valley.” Those, units around 800 to 900 square feet for about $1,000 to $1,200 per month, also are 100 percent occupied.

One of those residents is Florida native Kenny Stevenson of the How Factory, a firm that builds software for industrial companies, located at 200 State. He’s lived there four months. He’d been frustrated finding the right type of rental unit. While he initially had misgiving about living in the same building where he works, “it’s really nice just jumping on the elevator going down to the second floor.”

He also said there are great opportunities to make friends and network with other tenants and other users of the co-working space. He enjoys the common areas and is looking forward to using the workout area at 250 State.

“We feel like we really hit our stride this year,” Dodd said. The 44,000-square-foot 200 State building was popular with younger people who were originally from the Cedar Valley area, many of whom work in the Mill Race “coworking” space for entrepreneurs, young professions and others working remotely for other employers. The addition of two commercial tenants — Urban Pie and Absolute Results Technologies, a digital marketing firm — filled out the first-floor commercial space there.

The 250 State building will be 49,000 square feet. The building at Second and State is now larger with the addition of the ballroom and other facilities. The first level will be parking.

“This is really a sister building to 300 State. It’s purely residential,” Dodd said. “We’re back to a bigger unit. This is a mix of one-bedrooms,two-bedrooms and even three bedrooms. We’re noticing our fastest growing population in the neighborhood are baby boomers. It’s people who are interested in downsizing; they’re interested in simplifying; they’re empty-nester travelers.

“We feel this is another sign of success,” she said. “With 200 State we felt we were retaining the young population coming out of UNI. We’re keeping that population here. And with this building, which is geared toward the family-friendly amenities — the larger unit sizes, the heated garage, the scenic, serene view of the river — we really feel 34 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER‌

The view west of Third Street in Cedar Falls from one of the units in 250 State site in Cedar Falls, Iowa. that is attractive to that Baby Boomer generation. We feel they’re able to be retained in this area as well. Rather than completely lose them to Arizona or Florida, they’re at least keeping one foot in the community. We’re already getting that demographic down here,” in other buildings. “This is obviously a population that’s interested in being down here.”

Retired UNI professor Mike Klassen and his wife, Emily, moved into 300 State after selling their Cedar Falls home of 25 years; then they moved into 200 State when that space was available. They are in Cedar Falls part of the year and travel the rest.

“We owned a house for 25 years and raised three kids and had five dogs,” Mike Klassen said by phone from Santa Barbara, Calif., where he and his wife were traveling and living out of their van.

“We’re kind interested in staying in our unit,” he said. “It’s on the northeast corner and has a 270 degree view from the window, spanning a good portion of the river and downtown landscape.

“This is kind of what we dreamed about,” as retirement approached, Klassen said. “Early on, we couldn’t find it in the Cedar Valley. We thought we’d have to move to Chicago or Minneapolis. Then there it was. Precisely what we wanted. We couldn’t be happier.”

With 250 State the idea is, “let’s build something that suits them even more,” Dodd said. “It’s completely low maintenance. We do the yard work. We do the snow, we do the maintenance, and let them focus on being on the trails and the activity downtown.” A major recreational trail is adjacent to the building, along the flood wall.

The buiding at 250 State, anticipated to be completed in September, will have 42 living units, ranging from $1,200 to $2,200 a month depending on the number of bedrooms and other factors. Residents also can have a city view or a river view. First-time tenants in some of the larger units can make custom improvements — cabinetry and other fixtures — for a longer-term lease.

“2017 is also going to be huge for us in terms of amenities in the neighborhood,” Dodd said. “This building’s really our amenity-paced building.” It’ll have a fitness center, with showers, that residents and Mill Race co-working space members can use. The lobby will have hotel-lobby style seating with a fireplace and a coffee bar. The building is oriented toward the river and a to-be-constructed events plaza to the north.

One end of each floor will be devoted to common areas residents of individual units may use at different times, like a dining room or larger family gatherings and a media room with a flatscreen television for watching parties. The space between 200 and 250 State would be beautified with green space and possibly a community grilling area. A one-bedroom unit on each floor will be retained for nightly “bed-and-breakfast” rentals, individuals traveling on business or for tenants who have additional overnight guests. The units will have contemporary finishes and ample closet space. “We think it’ll go over well,” she said.

Some existing River Place residents already have expressed interest in the units. There also are about 20 households on a waiting list for residences. Kevin Dill, executive director of the Black Hawk County Veteran Affairs Commission, is wait-

ing to move into 250 State from another building in the complex.

“We like it,” Dill said. “At times the noise level between units is loud with dogs barking and loud neighbors, but for the most part we like it there. The management team is awesome and it’s a cool place to live. ... It is an adjustment coming from a house, as you have to get used to noisy neighbors at times.

“The new building will have updated items,” he said. “Larger areas for storage, more appropriate for older folks who have sold their home and want to downsize. The new place will have two full bathrooms.”

While 250 State is being completed, the parking lot off East Second behind the 100 block of Main Street will be redone beginning in the spring, reconfiguring and adding spaces and making room for River Place’s fourth building at East Second and State. It’s hoped parking lot work would be completed prior to the annual Sturgis Falls Celebration in late June.

Construction on the East Second and State building, called 100 East Second, would start this summer.

“While we’re finishing 250 State, 100 East Second will be breaking ground,” Dodd said.

Plans for 100 East Second were recently expanded in size. “We did a study with our architects, and the building height doesn’t need to grow hardly at all to get an additional floor in there,” she said. “It was honestly prompted by Pipac closing.” Pipac Center on the Lake in the Cedar Falls Technology Park recently was closed and sold for administrative offices for Area Education Agency 267. They hope to fill a void in meeting space at 100 East Second.

“We think it’s a pretty natural idea for someone to want to hold a wedding in the (planned events) plaza and want adjacent space to hold a reception or party,” Dodd said.

The second floor of 100 East Second would open out onto the top tier of the levee and top of the flood levee and would be coordinated with plans to raise that levy pending U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval. A restaurant would be located on that level.

Sarah Bey of River Place said the first-level commercial space would have several, smaller “incubator” spaces for beginning retailers, at about 650 square feet each, with the possibility for sidewalk sales, and be anchored by a restaurant adjacent to the plaza. Residential units would be on two levels with a lofted bedroom.

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PROGRESS 2017

www.wcfcourier.com/progress 35

THANK YOU GREATER CEDAR VALLEY ALLIANCE & CHAMBER INVESTORS Because of your support, our work has resulted in the following:

$252,820,000

CAPITAL INVESTMENT BY ALLIANCE & CHAMBER PROJECTS ASSISTED

from Alliance & Chamber projects 2013-2016

812.5

TOTAL JOBS CREATED

from Alliance & Chamber projects 2013-2016

$31,618,911

INCREASE IN TOTAL HOUSEHOLD EARNINGS

from Alliance & Chamber projects 2013-2016

$338,409,258

TOTAL WORKERS’ EARNING OVER NEXT 10 YRS

ROI from Alliance & Chamber projects 2013-2016

$239,417,464

TOTAL TAXABLE SALES OVER 10 YRS

YOUR SUPPORT HELPS FUEL THE REGIONAL ECONOMY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE ECONOMIC & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. Didyouknowforevery$1of investment, these projects supported or generated an additional: • • •

$64 in economic output $5.61 in net benefits for all local taxing districts $9.63 in additional local taxable sales

For more information on how the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber can assist your business, contact Steve Dust, President/CEO at 319-232-1156.

ROI from Alliance & Chamber projects 2013-2016 Source: Impact DataSource — Figures based on businesses the Alliance & Chamber assisted with expansion and new locations from 2013-2016. Jobs includes direct and indirect job creation.

www.cedarvalleyalliance.com | 10 W. 4th St. Suite 310 | Waterloo, IA 50701 | 319.232.1156

36 www.wcfcourier.com/progress

PROGRESS 2017