Workers from Ball Team LLC Construction Services are currently putting up the west stairwell. Levy expects the project, designed by Simonson and Associates Architects of Des Moines, to be completed by early 2021.

“We’ve had the benefit of a nice start to the winter that allowed all of the underground work to get done,” said Levy, president of West Des Moines-based Newbury Living.

The project has been in the works since 2015 but market conditions prompted Levy to push the pause button while units in other projects were leased. He had contemplated providing housing for senior citizens at the site but was not awarded tax credits from the state, he said.

“We reformulated the project again to primarily market rate,” he said. “I’m comfortable doing that because the market is absorbing the extra supply that was available.”

The project is in the Market District, 260 acres roughly bounded by East Walnut Street, East 14th Street, Scott Avenue and the Des Moines River. A proposed master plan for the area calls for the development of more than 3,400 housing units, 210,000 square feet of office space and over 135,000 square feet of new retail space over the next 10 to 20 years. Railroad tracks bisect the district.

Levy plans to convert a railroad shipping container into a bicycle workshop and storage area. He said he also plans on using another shipping container to create a second-level gazebo that would face East Sixth Street.

One- and two-bedroom apartments will lease for between $1,000 and $1,400 a month.

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