Des Moines school district looking to build stadium

Des Moines school officials want to build a multi-use stadium downtown at the former Dico Inc. manufacturing plant, one of the city's most environmentally troubled sites.

The proposed stadium could be used for a wide range of activities and would help Des Moines keep pace with suburban school districts' multimillion-dollar athletic facilities, district officials say.

"Our students in Des Moines deserve the same quality of facilities as all the districts around us," Superintendent Tom Ahart said. "We can't afford to build five shiny new stadiums, but the one thing we can do is take advantage of the economies of scale" to build one stadium.

City officials cautioned that development could be years off and hinges on brokering a deal between the site's current owner and environmental regulators, who have been fighting in court for years.

For some, the prospect of spending millions on a stadium raises questions about school funding priorities.

"The stadiums arms race doesn't make much sense to me," former school board member Graham Gillette said. "You have to provide facilities that facilitate learning and education. That should come first.

"Stadiums and athletic facilities can be part of that mix, but I would want to make sure the most critical education needs come before trying to keep up with Valley (High School) Stadium."

Gillette said school officials should develop a master plan to determine how to best spend dollars dedicated to facilities. "We've never demonstrated a need for a new stadium," he said.

The school district has four stadiums for five high schools. Roosevelt High School plays at Drake Stadium.

Des Moines school spokesman Phil Roeder said the district has made extensive planning efforts to address facilities.

"If the school district moves forward with a stadium project, it would be done with the same standard of putting our educational needs first and foremost," he said in an email.

Prime real estate

The former Dico plant sits on the west bank of the Raccoon River just south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. The plant closed in 1995 after nearly 50 years of manufacturing wheels, brakes and rubber products.

The site provides a prime piece of real estate — 38 acres of riverfront property, with views of the downtown skyline and four-lane access from every direction — but presents major obstacles to redevelopment.

Decades ago, industrial chemicals linked to cancer leaked from the Dico plant into the city's water supply, landing the site on the federal government's Superfund list, a worst-of-the-worst list of sites that pose contamination risks to the public.

Ahart said the stadium project will move forward only if the health risks are eliminated.

"We wouldn't build there if it was a risk to our students," he said.

School officials have not studied the cost of a new stadium. But based on what other districts have spent recently on athletic facilities, a new stadium could cost about $9 million, said Bill Good, school district chief operations officer.

Plans are still in the "very preliminary stage," Ahart said. A facilities committee has discussed a potential downtown stadium, but the issue hasn't gone before the school board.

Ahart said officials envision a stadium for multiple uses — football, track, soccer, band competitions and maybe even concerts. It could also serve as a secondary location for NCAA and other track events.

A footbridge across the river to Gray's Lark Park, which has been proposed before, is a possibility, he said.

District officials have discussed the possibility of sharing the stadium with other local entities, but Ahart said it was too early to make those talks public.

Des Moines city officials said they plan to help facilitate the project but don't want to own or be a partner in the facility.

Funding options

Funding remains a question mark. One possibility is using the 1-cent local option sales tax, which can be used to pay for school building projects. Last year the district collected about $24 million from the tax, Good said.

Another option is the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, a tax that can be used to buy land, buses or playground or other equipment or to build or renovate schools.

State and federal incentives like brownfield tax credits, which go toward the redevelopment of environmentally contaminated sites, are possibilities too.

At the earliest, the school district could break ground on a new stadium in two to three years, Good said. But it's possible the legal and environmental hurdles could take a decade or more to clear.

School board member Connie Boesen said the district should prioritize spending on classrooms and core educational facilities, but added that extracurricular facilities are also important.

"We should be offering our students the same opportunities as students in all the other areas" of the metro, she said.

Gretchen Tegeler, executive director of the Taxpayers Association of Central Iowa, said she does not oppose schools using the sales tax for new stadiums, but that it does raise questions about whether schools still need the revenue from the sales tax.

If a stadium is built, it should be used for as many community events as possible, not just school activities, Tegeler said.

Partnership required

Redeveloping the site will require a three-way partnership between Dico, the school district and the Environmental Protection Agency, officials said.

But that won't be easy. The EPA has sued Dico and its parent company, Titan International, for cleanup costs. Titan, a Quincy, Ill.-based tire manufacturer, has pledged to appeal.

For years, city leaders have seen the Dico plant as an important site to redevelop. But getting Dico to sell the property has been and remains one of the biggest challenges.

"There has been no movement," Assistant City Manager Matt Anderson said. "We've had talks with the EPA. … We have had periods of discussion with the owner, but it never seems to go anywhere."

Multiple calls to Titan on Friday were not returned.

The Greater Des Moines Partnership listed the Dico plant cleanup as an item it will lobby for during its annual trip to Washington, D.C., next week.

"This isn't going to be a project you see start in 2015. There will be many, many years of dialogue and legal discussion," Anderson said.

The stadium project would add to the development momentum south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. Two new mixed-use developments, CityVille and Nexus at Gray's Landing, promise to bring more than 500 new apartments, retail space and a hotel a few blocks east of the Dico site.

Anderson said even if the stadium project doesn't come to fruition, the school district's proposal should help jump-start the effort to redevelop the site for some kind of use.

"I have developers come into my office all the time. I pull out the map and they ask, 'Where can I go?' " Anderson said. "Maybe one day I can point to this site."

Ahart said he wants to see the Dico site cleaned up — even if it's not for a new stadium.

"I drive by that area often, and it's an eyesore. ... It's an embarrassment," he said. "There are a lot of dominoes that need to fall, but we think we can make an addition to the city."

Site may not need extensive cleanup

The shuttered Dico Inc. manufacturing plant is one of about 400 Superfund sites nationwide, meaning it is recognized by the federal government as posing a contamination risk to the public.

Redeveloping the site, though, may not require a massive cleanup, said Mel Pins, brownfield program manager for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Many brownfield sites require the removal of massive amounts of contaminated soil, but the problems at the Dico site involved groundwater, not soil.

A groundwater treatment system has been in place for 30 years, and it's possible the site will just need to be monitored in the future, Pins said.

"There is a great potential for this site," he said. "With just a little bit of cleanup, it could be a real gem for the city."

The plant sits on the east bank of the Raccoon River, just south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. Today, the plant consists of a group of rusting and blighted buildings and a massive cement pad added to prevent the spread of contaminants.

Environmental concerns at the site span nearly 40 years.

In 1976, a chemical called trichloroethylene, or TCE, which is used in industrial degreasers and has been linked to cancer, was found to have leaked into the Des Moines water supply.

The Dico plant was identified as a potential source of the pollutants, and in 1983 the Environmental Protection Agency added it to the Superfund list.

The area flooded in 1993. Also that year, Titan International acquired the plant.

Titan closed the plant in 1995.

Since then, the plant has been tied up in litigation. In 1999, the federal government took Dico Inc. to court, seeking $4.5 million for pollution cleanup expenses.

The EPA again sued Dico and Titan Tire Corp. in 2010, for costs related to the improper disposal of steel beams from the Des Moines plant. In February, a federal judge ordered Dico and Titan to pay $3.1 million and $1.5 million, respectively, in fines and penalties.

Titan CEO Morry Taylor pledged to appeal the ruling.

— Joel Aschbrenner