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Cedar Rapids buys land near Cedar Lake for $10M
Purchase from the Stickles marks key step for flood control system work
Marissa Payne
Aug. 10, 2023 5:30 am, Updated: Aug. 10, 2023 7:59 am
CEDAR RAPIDS — The city of Cedar Rapids has finalized a $10 million deal to buy land from Rick and Marsha Stickle to build a flood control levee around Cedar Lake, with additional land providing for a flood plain — marking a key step to move forward with completion of the city’s network of flood protection.
The Cedar Rapids City Council unanimously voted this week to approve the city’s purchase of the property at and around 550 Stickle Dr. NE and Cedar Lake for a segment of the city’s approximately $750 million permanent flood control system. The deal also includes easement rights around Union Pacific’s north rail yard and the lake.
The agreement was on the council’s consent agenda, where items considered noncontroversial are grouped together and voted on at once. The council in December discussed and approved a conditional purchase agreement while the two parties sought appraisals before finalizing the deal.
“We have worked shoulder to shoulder with the City of Cedar Rapids to come up with a ‘win-win’ scenario for all parties involved,” Rick Stickle, owner of Midwest Third Party Logistics, wrote in a statement.
Stickle said Public Works Director Bob Hammond, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz and Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell have been fair and professional in representing the city to reach the deal. “Fortunately both sides were able to have individual appraisals that were very similar in value,” Stickle said. “This will allow the city to continue to build the flood wall in a faster fashion as well as opening up the Cedar Lake area to some fantastic new opportunities that all will be able to appreciate in the future.”
Stickle served prison time from 2006 to 2008 after he was convicted of orchestrating the dumping of 442 tons of diesel-contaminated grain in the South China Sea and conspiring to impede a U.S. Coast Guard investigation. The Gazette reported that in a 2009 email interview, Stickle said he went to prison “not because of doing something wrong, but rather because of inept and dishonest employees.”
Under Cedar Rapids’ flood control system master plan, which was approved after the devastating flood of 2008 to shield the city from rising Cedar River waters, the north end of the system ties into high ground around Interstate 380 and J Avenue NE. The approximately 30 acres owned by the Stickles at 550 Stickle Dr. NE, and the vacant land between there and the lake, is north of Quaker Oats.
This purchase adds to about 33 acres north of Quaker Oats, extending toward McLoud Run Park, that the city acquired from the Hoth estate in recent years, Flood Control Program Manager Rob Davis previously said. The Stickle land was needed to close the flood control system “without a gap,” he has said.
Officials anticipate work on the east side of the river will be done by the end of 2026.
According to the agreement, Hammond said, apart from stockpiles of concrete and other rock and asphalt materials on the site, Stickle Entities will remove a variety of existing items on the property before closing, which is anticipated sometime in September. All associated stockpiles and crushing operations machinery is to be removed before Jan. 1, 2024.
Stickle Entities is responsible for cleanup of the property, under the agreement, and is to leave the property in “appropriate condition that allows the city to proceed with staging and construction of the flood protection system,” Hammond said.
Hammond said there were two appraisals for this land: One total appraised market value of $7. 778 million, and the other approximately $10.6 million highest and best use, plus another nearly $10.9 million of value associated with costs to the city would avoid in the form of easements and obligations that would occur should the sale not happen.
Council member Dale Todd, a longtime champion of efforts to revitalize Cedar Lake, said the need to secure this property was first identified in the Cedar Lake Master Plan effort led by then-Mayor Don Canney and others in the 1980s, so this deal was “following through with their vision.”
Stickle has had a long history with land around Cedar Lake that city officials over the years have said may be at odds with their vision for the land. The Gazette reported in the 1990s that Stickle Enterprises sought a city permit to bring in fill to build a warehouse near the lake.
Todd, then the parks commissioner under the city’s previous commission form of government, was one of four who supported a 119-day moratorium on construction around the lake, blocking new development to look at future uses of the area. Cedar Lake was highlighted as a prime spot for recreation.
Now, decades later, officials are working to revitalize Cedar Lake with amenities and lake restoration and build a pedestrian-bike bridge to the south spanning the river.
“It was a complicated negotiation, and I must applaud city staff and all parties for their willingness to cooperate,” Todd said. “While the primary driver is certainly the flood control system, the inherent benefits to the city, lake and park cannot be underestimated.”
Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com