Bondurant Economic Development Launch Program
Bondurant, Iowa
Marketa Oliver, ICMA-CM, City Administrator
Jené Nichelle Jess, Finance and Employee Services Director
Located in the Des Moines metropolitan area, Bondurant has a rapidly growing single-family residential (SFR) tax base, as well as significant tracts of agricultural land. The city has experienced explosive growth, expanding from 1,846 in 2000 to 7,365 in 2020.
Growth brings challenges. Bondurant has abundant needs, yet a tax base slow to expand. Exacerbating the problem is the local government taxing structure in Iowa, where SFR properties are effectively taxed at approximately one-half or less of assessed valuation; agricultural properties are taxed at an even lower rate; and commercial and industrial (CI) properties are taxed at 90 percent. Thus, the mix between CI and SFR valuation is critical to the long-term sustainability of a community. It was clear that Bondurant needed to increase the proportion of CI properties in its tax base.
In 2017, the city developed a strategic plan to achieve this goal, leading to the development of the Bondurant Economic Development Launch Program. The city council recognized that converting a few key properties could jumpstart CI development and empowered staff to streamline processes and procedures to ensure that Bondurant could move at the speed of business. The council and new city administrator determined that the best path was pursuing Certified Site status for a 169-acre parcel of agricultural land strategically located off a state highway and near the entrance to Interstate 80.
Iowa’s Certified Sites program designates sites as “development ready.” Application involves identifying ownership and easements or other property restrictions; creating utility maps; conducting environmental, historical, and architectural studies; delineating and/or mitigating wetlands; performing endangered species reviews; and estimating costs for site work essential for probable development.
It was an enormous undertaking, and Bondurant had only the city administrator for planning staff. She met with the private landowners (more than 12) to secure their partnership and recruited assistance in researching and compiling the required information from the Eastern Polk Innovation Collaborative (EPIC), a public-private partnership for economic development; staff members from Polk County and the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization; and business contacts from MidAmerican Energy.
The wetlands, endangered species, environmental, architectural, and historical studies required external professional assistance from a local consulting firm. MidAmerican Energy helped offset the costs. The certification process took nearly two years, and its full cost was approximately $72,000. Bondurant officially became home to Iowa’s newest Certified Site on November 4, 2019—the first milestone of the Economic Development Launch Program. This project solidified to staff the value of collecting this type of information to market Bondurant to other developers and proactively reduce the development timeline.
While Bondurant pursued certification, the city invested $735,836 to proactively extend utilities to the target area. The city met with developers seeking a site for a distribution center for a large national company—a project that would later be dubbed “Project Bluejay.”
One potential barrier was the company’s extremely aggressive timeline. Because the city council had given staff the go-ahead to streamline processes, the time from the first meeting with developers until the day the graders were at work on the property was 47 days.
When the program began in 2017, SFR valuation made up 87.43% of the city’s tax base and CI represented only 9.92%. The Bluejay project raised the CI valuation to 17.71% and lowered the SFR percentage to 80.32%. In total, the city has landed six projects, improving the ratio even further. Businesses targeted under this program created more than 2,200 jobs between 2020 and 2022.
The Economic Development Launch Program contributes to Bondurant’s long-term financial sustainability, providing resources that improve public services and quality of life
