year: 2023

Varsity Cinema

The Varsity Theater closed in 2018, after 80 years of operation in the Dogtown commercial district. At that time, it was the last operating historic theater in Des Moines. From 1917-1923, it housed University Motors. In 1923, it was converted into the main Coca-Cola bottling facility. In 1938, it was renovated to the Art Deco [...]

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Dubuque

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Dubuque purchased its church building in the early 2000s. The Carpenter Gothic style building was originally constructed for the German Methodist Episcopal Church in 1885. Over the years, the church building was substantially altered. The most drastic exterior alteration was removal of the belfry sometime in the 1950s-1960s. In 2019, [...]

The Charlotte E. Maish House

This Shingle Style Craftsman Foursquare home was built in 1911 by Charlotte E. Maish. After 20+ years in the Maish family, the home was briefly used as a fraternity and sorority house in the 1930s. It was subdivided into a duplex in the 1960s. It sat vacant without heat for about a decade before purchased [...]

SS Peter & Paul Catholic Church

SS Peter & Paul Catholic Church was built in 1905 in the unincorporated village of Petersburg. The parish was established in the 1860s by the German-speaking population of rural Delaware and Dubuque Counties. The Gothic Revival church has a multitude of pointed arch window openings, many with stained glass windows from Germany. The ceilings and [...]

Preston Times Newspaper Building

Built in the early 1900’s, the Preston Times Building is a vital part of the historic fabric of downtown Preston. Past uses included a saloon, pool hall, and a laundry mat before being used continuously as a newspaper office. The Preston Times newspaper has been in the same family for decades. The unique parallelogram shaped [...]

Polk County Historic Courthouse

Designed by Proudfoot and Bird, the historic Polk County Courthouse is the anchor of the Historic Court Avenue District in downtown Des Moines. Built between 1900 and 1906, the Beaux Arts Classical courthouse is unique in the state and region. The $34.5 million dollar interior restoration brings the century old building back to life by [...]

Hotel Fort Des Moines

Responding to the westward expansion of downtown Des Moines at the dawn of Prohibition Era, the Hotel Fort Des Moines served as the city’s westernmost and state’s largest hotel upon opening in 1919. Totaling 241,000 square feet over 11 stories, the hotel has undergone a $50-million-dollar renovation using state and federal historic tax credits. New [...]

Decorah Altfillisch Project

Charles Altfillisch had a greater impact on the present visual character of Decorah than any other single individual. As an engineer, from 1919 onwards he conceptualized and forcefully advocated for the Upper Iowa dike system, finally completed in 1951. As a city employee he designed major infrastructure systems and was in the 1930s the driving [...]

Colfax City Hall

In 2018, the City of Colfax purchased a historic downtown building that had been sitting vacant for a decade. The circa 1920, 7,300 square foot brick building was built as the Everett and Baker Ford Garage and dealership. The plan was to renovate the building into a permanent City Hall, Police Department, and Colfax Main Street Office [...]

City View on State

Historically known as the Head Brothers Bank Block, the City View on State building dates back to 1871, and is the oldest building in downtown Jefferson. The 6,000 square foot building has seen many commercial uses. The second floor was converted to apartments in 1949. The City of Jefferson acquired the building in 2016, when [...]