The redevelopment of the former Klein Department Store building in the Highland Park Neighborhood is expected to be complete by this summer as work continues to transform the 120-year old building into space for a speakeasy, restaurant, small-business incubator and apartments.

Chloe Bratvold and her husband, Tim, operating as 36 on 6th LLC, purchased the building from Adamson Properties II LLC in 2022 for $400,000. Since then, they have been working to renovate the building to restore it to its heyday.

Over the past two years the $3.69 million project has been awarded historic tax credits and a 12% grayfield tax credit capped at $240,000, incentives that Chloe Bratvold said were critical to the project moving forward.

“Frankly, we needed those to make the project pencil,” she said. “We were waiting on that before we could move forward, but during that time we were working on designs, finding a contractor and all of that.”

Bratvold, a business development specialist with WB Realty Co., said the former Klein Department Store building, located at 3614 Sixth Ave., wasn’t for sale at the time so they approached the owner and pitched their idea for a historic tax credit renovation.

“It took a little while to get there but we came to an agreement,” Bratvold said.

She said the opportunity to redevelop the building for mixed-use — and to save a historic building — made it an attractive proposition to pursue.

“It was one of the last buildings there big enough to be redeveloped for business and residential and to be saved,” Bratvold said.

The goal of the project is to restore the building, last renovated in 1989, according to the Polk County Assessor’s website, to how it looked in the 1950s, she said.

“That’s believed to be the most historically prevalent time period, when the Klein Department Store was in there,” Bratvold said.

As you enter the building, there is a stairway that leads to the basement, where the Highland Underground speakeasy will be located, she said.

Bratvold said the same company behind Dough Co. Pizza will operate the speakeasy.

The first floor will be divided into a 3,600-square-foot restaurant with a patio on the south side and 2,300-square-feet on the north that will have its own entrance after new doors are cut in on the front of the building facing Sixth Avenue.

She envisions that space being designed as a small business incubator.

“What I am imagining is an incubator to help small businesses get that brick-and-mortar without the cost,” Bratvold said. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities for small businesses to potentially test a concept, so for me it’s giving opportunity to small businesses.”

The second floor is being turned into four apartments. It was once a meeting space for the Knights of Pythias, an international, nonsectarian fraternity founded in 1864.

It’s that history that will make the apartments unique, Bratvold said.

“It’s really cool architecture with high ceilings and all that architecture is staying, so someone is going to have essentially a stage in their apartment where they used to have their meetings, which is pretty cool,” she said.

Bratvold said the renovation of the building is expected to be complete by June 1, with WB Realty serving as the leasing agent.

One challenge has been making sure floor tiles, paint colors and other materials meet the requirements outlined under the historic tax credit program.

Also, as is the case with any renovation of an old building, there are surprises found behind walls that may drive up costs, Bratvold said.

For example, there was a nearly $80,000 change order to ensure a wall was structurally sound and prevent it from collapsing, she said.

“That comes with historic renovation, right?” Bratvold said. “In reality, to bring these buildings back they have to be structurally sound, which comes at an additional cost before you can even touch the aesthetic of the building.”

Bratvold, an Eagle Grove native, grew up in a family of land auctioneers — Ryerson Auction and Realty.

“So I’ve kind of known real estate my whole life,” she said. “Both my dad and my grandfather were auctioneers, that was their bread and butter, so I was at farm sales every weekend. So the selling concept has always been around, but my dad was not in any sense a developer.”

Bratvold earned a culinary arts degree from Kirkwood Community College. After graduating, she was a private chef for a family and traveled with them. She then entered sales with Bolton & Hay, a commercial food equipment supplier, where she worked for a couple of years.

She didn’t begin her career in development until she and her husband, director of business development at Estes Construction, bought their first building in Valley Junction in 2020.

That was 130 Fifth St., where she opened Candle Bar dsm, a business she sold in August 2024.

The Bratvolds, who retained ownership of the Valley Junction building, also purchased and renovated a run-down, 10-plex apartment building at 622 Euclid Ave., in the Highland Park neighborhood, near where the dilapidated Highland Park Apartment building was razed in September 2023.

For Bratvold, being able to renovate a historic building is more than just about saving a piece of history. It’s also about keeping space more affordable for tenants and others in the neighborhood.

“You could keep an existing building and keep it the way it should be and keep up with the maintenance or you can tear down a building and rebuild and that means those rents in that neighborhood are going to go up, whether it’s business or residential,” she said. “We tear down and rebuild and things become more expensive and at some point that’s going to change the neighborhood, so for me that’s a big thing, too.”