Developer presents initial plans for Shiloh property

Posted 1/23/20

On Monday night, the Kalona City Council got a look at preliminary plans from a developer for the Shiloh church property south of town.

Adam Kos of developer CJ Moyna and Sons presented a map of …

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Developer presents initial plans for Shiloh property

Posted

On Monday night, the Kalona City Council got a look at preliminary plans from a developer for the Shiloh church property south of town.

Adam Kos of developer CJ Moyna and Sons presented a map of the property and discussed development plans.

“I wanted to provide something tonight but purposely made it fairly bland,” Kos said. “There’s a lot that has to go into this yet from a design standpoint and a planning and zoning standpoint.”

He explained that development would be done in phases, with phase one consisting of 40-50 residential units.

“We want to set this up in a fashion where if it goes wildly successful, we’re ready for phase two,” Kos said.

With plans to demolish the existing buildings on the property this spring, the developer is looking at the property as a “blank canvas.”

“We want to be thoughtful in our planning moving forward,” Kos said. “We want to get the utility corridors right, get the grading right, make sure the stormwater retention is well thought out. We want to set up the property right for the next 75-100 years.”

He said that one of the unique features of the property is the presence of mature trees.

“You can’t get mature trees for 75 years,” he said. “Any grading and improvements that we do would be set up with what’s already there.

“The land out there is beautiful. The rolling terrain is something that is unique.”

Kos pointed out that the developer plans to purchase the property from Shiloh, and that the project should be rebranded.

“We don’t work for Shiloh. If we’re going to purchase the property, this is going to be the city of Kalona. From the marketing and branding standpoint, there’s some teeth to the ‘Southtown Area of Kalona.’

“It’s obviously got a geographical connection to Kalona. We can brand it as something new and different, but it’s an extension of Kalona.”

He added that, within the Southtown development area, there will be individual developments.

“We’ll have phase one, which will have a name,” he said. “We may have campgrounds. We may have other things like parks that will have specific names.”

Council member Joe Schmidt asked if there were plans for public and recreational areas on the property.

“There’s some intent in deeding some of this property over to the city,” Kos said. “When you’re designing something like this with a landscape that looks like this, there’s obviously a lot of natural beauty that’s out there.”

Two weeks ago, the council voted to move forward with annexing the property, a process which City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh said would probably extend into March and April of this year.

“The goal tonight is that you direct staff to work with the developer to work through a developer’s agreement,” Schlabaugh told council members. “This would be contractually what we work with going forward. That would be a legal document to help protect us, the developer and the current property owner.”