GG Land Group

GG Land Group made a presentation last night regarding a development they are proposing for eastern University Heights. The Press Citizen covered it here:


U-Heights Residents Speak Out About Proposed Housing Complex

I was teaching class last night until 8 PM and was only able to attend the last 30 minutes of the meeting. GG Land Group presented at the September City Council meeting and we suggested that they hold a city-wide informational meeting.

In a nutshell this project would be a 158 unit (508 bed) apartment building catering to upper level and professional students. The property site is just west of the bridge on the south side of Melrose Ave. The parcel is a right triangle shape with the hypotenuse running along the railroad tracks. Since the land comes to a point at Melrose, most of the property is nearly invisible to a casual observer.

I have some fairly large concerns about the scale and impact of this project. If you notice the large gap between the number of units and number of beds listed above, one easily sees that nearly 40% of the units would contain 4 bedrooms. As a point of interest, Iowa City no longer allows 4 bedroom units in their multi-family buildings. And while I appreciate GG Land Group's statement that most of the residents of this project would be pedestrians or bicyclists, access remains a major issue as well.

I'm certain the a majority of city council does not think this project, as proposed, is a good fit for the property or our town. Personally I don't think it could be "tweaked" to make it one either.

If you've read this far, let me also say that despite what the Press Citizen said, we DO NOT have a council meeting on October 23rd!

And let me also say I need to update this site with council meeting summaries and will do that as well as talk more about LOST in the next few days.