Des Moines University leaders, with West Des Moines city leaders, community members and media, this morning celebrated the start of construction of DMU’s new 88-acre campus in West Des Moines.

DMU President Angela Franklin presided over the ceremony, held beneath a large white tent during a steady patter of rain. As the highlight of the event, university officials unveiled two large weatherproof renderings of the newly designed four-building campus, and later posed with DMU-purple shovels. Many of the guests and officials donned purple DMU facemasks provided by the university.

“We celebrate the strong future growth and innovation of the university, and at the same time we recognize the advancement of the city of West Des Moines and its commitment to providing the highest quality of life for its citizens, businesses and organizations,” Franklin said. “What a year it has been at Des Moines University as we have been working fast and creatively through the campus master planning and design process.”

DMU plans to move to the new campus — which will have the address 8025 Grand Ave. — from its existing campus at 3200 Grand Ave. in Des Moines during 2023, which will be the university’s 125th year. The land sits on the north side of West Grand Avenue, located between South Jordan Creek Parkway and South 88th Street. It is bounded on the north by Booneville Road.

“Today, with the memory of the beginning of this new chapter in the evolution of the university, our future has never been stronger or more promising,” Franklin said.

DMU’s partners in the venture include RDG Planning & Design as the design firm, Turner Construction as the general contractor and Formation Group as the university’s construction representative. University officials declined to disclose the potential dollar investment in the project at this time.

Franklin commented on the site’s unique geology the campus steering committee has learned about over the past 18 months. While much of the site is flat, it rises at the north end to a hill that geologists term the “edge of advancement” of what was the Wisconsin Glacier as it moved south across North America more than 10,000 years ago. That heritage, with the knowledge that Native Americans once farmed the land, helped to motivate the planning committee to incorporate the highest standards of sustainable and ecological responsibility, she said.

Franklin credited the late attorney Bill Lillis for introducing DMU leaders to Wayne McKinney, from whose family DMU purchased the land. “If Bill were here, I know he would be beaming with pride,” Franklin said. “He was our greatest champion through the early days of this process, and he was so excited about the prospect of this win-win-win partnership.”

Speaking for the city of West Des Moines, Mayor Pro Tem Renee Hardman said that having Des Moines University as a part of the community will make the city “a place to live, work, learn and play.” Hardman has served on the DMU board of trustees for the past 10 years, and the city council for three years.

“Our future is bright together, and we are making amazing things happen in West Des Moines, thanks to Des Moines University,” Hardman said. “Dr. Franklin, as the true servant leader, and with your strong leadership team, your collective powers of envisioning a bold and exciting future are nothing short of amazing.”

Although the university has 88 acres to work with, the building footprint of the new campus will be more compact than the existing Des Moines campus, with an eye toward greater efficiency and environmentally advanced, said Jonathan Martin, a partner with RDG Planning & Design, following the ceremony.

“Early on, the client was interested in creating a project that fit very well within the context of the community,” Martin said. “Becoming a community asset, but also creating this very forward-thinking and innovative campus for health sciences — and so that established the goal right away.”

By streamlining some uses and recognizing where there was excess space, the design incorporates less square footage than the existing campus, yet is designed to accommodate a larger student population over the next decade, Martin said. One of the four initial campus buildings will be a parking ramp to minimize parking-lot sprawl.

“When we were selected to look at the master plan for the site, it wasn’t just about moving their campus today, but looking to the future. So it’s very important to them to make sure that any decisions made for this initial move don’t inhibit their ability to grow, because they anticipate seeing the campus growing over time.”

For more information about and renderings of the new campus, visit the new-campus website created by DMU.