Adam Petersen, one-half of a pioneering team of brothers-in-law that ventured into Des Moines’ Market District to build a three-story office building a few years back, is again venturing where few have gone in recent memory — the city’s Southeast Agrimergent Business Park.

Petersen is president of PDM Precast Inc., a company that fabricates steel and precast concrete. It wants to buy about 30 acres of city-owned property at 3500 Vandalia Road in an effort to consolidate and expand operations.

The company has operations nearby at 3312 E. Granger Ave. and in Carlisle. 

PDM wants to build a 45,000-square-foot steel fabrication facility on the Vandalia Road property in the next three years and another 80,000 square feet of construction within 10, according to a city economic development department report to the City Council.

The council voted Monday to pursue a development agreement with PDM. Under the agreement, nearly 26 acres would be sold to PDM at $40,000 per acre, with a 30 percent discount. A ditch makes up 4 acres of the property and would not factor into the land cost. The discount is a recognition of PDM’s development plans for the property. Final terms will include an additional discount due to extraordinary development costs that need to be further defined and reviewed, according to the report to the City Council. 

The Southeast Agrimergent Park was created by the City Council in 2001 to guide new investment in agribusiness, manufacturing, technology, bioscience and other industries.

That process has been slow. But in recent years Helena Industries has expanded and has the ability for additional development in the area and Des Moines Cold Storage has built a new facility and also is considering additional expansion near its site at 3805 Vandalia Road.

In 2017, Petersen, brother-in-law Jim Kottmeyer and partners were finishing an office building at 220 S.E. Sixth St. that at the time was described as a pioneering project in the city’s emerging Market District.

Their plans included extending East Elm Street along the southern end of their Market District property and upgrading the sewer system to trigger additional development in the area.

They ran into a hitch when they discovered that the stretch of Elm was controlled by BNSF Railway Co. under an easement the city granted in 1879 to the Des Moines and Knoxville Railway Co., which was passed to successor railroads and finally to BNSF.

The tracks were abandoned decades ago, at least in practice. The federal Surface Transportation Board has final say on what lines are abandoned and what lines are not. To date, it has not acted on BNSF’s application to abandon its easement and allow progress to rumble on down the line.