The Arcadia office building in West Des Moines will undergo a $6 million makeover that when completed will provide employees with more modern work spaces and amenities, the property’s owners said.

The four-story building at 7000 Vista Drive had been occupied by Wells Fargo Card Services since its construction in the early 1990s. Wells Fargo moved the division to its Jordan Creek campus, creating more than 280,000 square feet of vacant office space in West Des Moines.

“We have a big portfolio of office space and have been doing office for a long time,” said Mark Rupprecht, president of R&R Realty Group, which owns the Arcadia property. “We have a really good feel for what employees want – and today they want the ultimate experience. They want amenities, not on a small scale but a large scale.

“Employers want amenities that will get employees back to the office where they can collaborate and have access to things that they wouldn’t necessarily have at a remote work site.”

Among the most ambitious changes on the 34-acre site is the conversion of about four acres of parking into green space. The area, located on the southern edge of the property, will include walking paths, picnic areas, spaces for working outside, a pickleball court and numerous plants and trees. Two existing ponds will bookend the green space. Outdoor classes such as yoga will be able to be held in the area.

The building will have fewer people working in it, so there won’t be the need for as much parking space, said Jeremy Shepherd, president of Development Services Corp., a division of R&R Realty. “We want to create an outdoor workspace, an outdoor environment for employees and customers.”

Space is also being created for a food truck court, something that has been added at other R&R Realty properties and is popular with workers, Shepherd said.

The interior of the building will be converted from a single-tenant user to a multi-tenant building. ITA Group, now located in R&R Realty’s Regency West Office Park, is relocating to the Arcadia building, leasing nearly 150,000 square feet, Brent Vander Waal, the company’s CEO and president, said.

“We have some other folks who are actively considering the building,” said Adam Kaduce, president of R&R Real Estate Investors. “We still have opportunities in the building for tenants that want or need 4,000 square feet of space or a full floor.”

Tenants will have a large range of amenities available.
The Arcadia’s lobby is being redesigned to include a floor-to-ceiling video wall that will display waterfalls or other nature-related scenes. Also planned is an executive conference room that will be shared by the building’s tenants. A multipurpose room, fitness center, “grab-and-go” market and Starbucks coffee kiosk are also being added.

The building’s exterior has been re-stained and minor repairs made.

“We think these brand new, contemporary finishes are ones that will help draw people back to the office,” Kaduce said. “They are going to want to experience and utilize the space.”

Over the past couple years, R&R Realty has been modernizing its office buildings as a way to retain tenants and attract new ones. The group earlier this year announced that it was updating its Palisade building at 4900 University Ave. in West Des Moines. The building was re-stained and the interior refreshed.

The upgrades come during a time when there’s a large amount of vacant office space in the Greater Des Moines market. CBRE Inc.’s most recent office market report showed the Des Moines area with over 2.87 million square feet of vacant office space, 42%, or 1.22 million square feet, of which is in West Des Moines and Clive.

The Arcadia vacancy is the largest amount of empty office space West Des Moines has in one building, said Ryan Moffatt, West Des Moines’ community and economic development director. The vacancy in the Arcadia and other office buildings have contributed to the decline in the assessed value of office properties, he said.

The Arcadia property, for instance, has seen its assessed value drop 41% to $18 million from its 2020 value of $30 million.

“We don’t want property to sit vacant for a long period of time and have its assessed value continually decreasing,” Moffatt said.

The city is working with R&R Realty Group to help ensure improvements are made to the property and that it doesn’t continue to sit vacant.

This week, the West Des Moines City Council approved an amendment to the Ashworth Corridor Urban Renewal Plan that would pave the way for the city to provide financial assistance for improvements to the property.

Part of the financial package includes issuing property tax rebates of up to $1.5 million over a seven-year period, according to information provided the council. A development agreement with R&R Realty Group, which is expected to be considered by the council on Dec. 4, will include a minimum assessment requirement for the property that will be in place for 14 years, Moffatt said. The development agreement will also include a requirement that the building be occupied by one or more businesses that have at least 50 jobs.

“Having that minimum assessment will provide us with some stability on what the assessment is going to be during that duration,” Moffatt said.

ITA Group’s move will ‘create a better experience’ for workers, president says

See renderings of the makeover of the Arcadia office building below

In a time when companies are reducing the space they have in office buildings, ITA Group is bucking the trend: The West Des Moines-based company is expanding its footprint by 66%.

“Our intent is to create a better experience for our team,” said Brent Vander Waal, the company’s CEO and president.

ITA Group, which manages and operates incentive, employee recognition and customer experience programs for Fortune 1,000 companies, currently leases about 90,000 square feet of space in the Regency West office park. The company’s lease is expiring and Vander Waal said he wanted to relocate the office to “next generation space” that helps attract and retain employees.

In 2024, the company will relocate to the Arcadia building at 7000 Vista Drive, about two miles west from the group’s current location. The vacant Arcadia, owned by R&R Realty Group, is undergoing a $6 million makeover.

“We want to add amenities to our building that we felt were going to be difficult to do in our existing space,” Vander Waal said.

Among the amenities will be an on-site day care and robust fitness center, he said. Also planned are over 4 acres of green space that will include walking trails and places to work.

ITA Group has about 500 local employees and another 500 worldwide. Since the pandemic, ITA Group has allowed employees to choose where they work, Vander Waal said. “Our main rule is, ‘Let your work determine where you work.’ If there’s a meeting with four or five people, we ask that the meeting be held at the office.”

Vander Waal estimated that between 50% and 60% of the company’s local employees work in the office Monday through Thursday.

Vander Waal said he thinks more employees will work from the office when ITA Group moves to the Arcadia. Employees who use the new day care will likely remain at the office to work, he said. Others will be attracted to the state-of-the-art fitness center and other amenities.

The new office space will also help ITA Group attract new employees, Vander Waal said.

“We want to create our workplace to be a destination – the kind of destination that makes it easy and convenient and comfortable for people to work in,” he said.

Planned Arcadia building makeovers