Frustrated by a lack of communication with KDG LLC, officials want a reply to a letter sent to the Columbia, Missouri, company. If they don’t get a reply by the end of the day Friday, the process of taking the building back will likely begin, according to Mayor Matt Bemrich.

”We’ve given them a certified letter that they need to reply to,” Bemrich said. ”If they don’t respond, we’ll start action to take the building away from them.”

That letter was sent after the company was to apply in April for state historic preservation tax credits deemed essential to financing the $35 million project.

”This project doesn’t make any sense without historic tax credits,” Patrick Kearns, of KDG LLC, told the City Council on Sept. 23, 2019.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Gray skies surround the Warden Plaza Wednesday afternoon. The future remains uncertain for the dilapidated structure first constructed in stages between 1914 and 1926.

But city officials aren’t sure that the company even tried to get those credits.

”I am not aware that they submitted an application,” Bemrich said.

A call to Jeff Morgan, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, seeking information on the tax credits for the project, wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday. The State Historic Preservation Office, which has a key part in determining which projects get the credits, is part of that department.

Kearns’ Sept. 23, 2019, appearance before the council was one of the last times local leaders had contact with the company. Bemrich said he remembers one conference call since then that included a representative of KDG LLC. He said that since September, city staff members and representatives of The Formation Group, the Des Moines company retained by the City Council as its project manager for the Warden Plaza, have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to talk with company leaders.

”They have not responded,” Bemrich said.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Dozens of damaged windows at the Warden Plaza demonstrate the deteriorating condition of the building.

The City Council gave the building to the company in December 2016, after going to court to take it from its previous owner, Corale LLC, of Oakland, California, under the terms of the state’s abandoned buildings law.

The developer’s plan for the building at 908 First Ave. S., calls for retail space on the first two floors and about 100 apartments on the upper floors.

A rejuvenated Warden Plaza was envisioned as one element of a transformation of the 900 block of First Avenue South that would also include a new cultural and recreation center and a parking garage with additional features called an intermodal hub.

The eight-story Warden Plaza was built in stages between 1914 and 1926. It was developed by Theodore Warden, an Ohio coal mine investor

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Some of the building sculptures of the Warden Plaza remain intact, while others have been damaged.