The Preferred Plan

The records reviewed for this article do not establish one secret plan or one set of rules for every parcel. They document a narrower recurring pattern along Ellis Boulevard and in Time Check: modest single-family homes disappeared, while later projects returned denser housing, including market-rate apartments and riverfront condominiums marketed as luxury housing.

Frank King warned us months before the City Council approved its post-flood framework.

It was 2008. Time Check had just been devastated by the flood. People were cleaning out their homes, trying to rebuild their lives and deciding whether they could stay. Frank was already warning that large parts of the neighborhoods near the river might become parkland instead of being rebuilt.

Frank King and Councilman Chuck Wieneke at a Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association meeting in the basement of Roosevelt Middle School, 2009. Photo from my personal collection.

2008-2009: The Warning

Frank was president of the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association, which included Time Check. On July 1, 2008, less than three weeks after the flood, an Associated Press report identified him as the association's president. It reported that he expected large parts of the neighborhoods near the river to become parkland, with no rebuilding where homes were bought out.

That was not a prediction made years later. Frank said it while residents were still standing in the wreckage.

Later that month, a Chicago Tribune report reprinted in a State of Iowa newsletter said City officials estimated it would cost $86 million to buy out homeowners who would not be allowed to rebuild in the 100-year floodplain.

Frank also served on the Replacement Housing Task Force appointed by the Cedar Rapids City Council. The City's River Corridor Redevelopment Plan, approved by the Council on November 12, 2008, lists him among the task force members.

By June 17, 2009, his warning had become more pointed. TIME reported that Frank accused the City of using the flood for what he called economic cleansing. He said early conflicting messages had panicked people of limited means and that many had sold to speculators. Council member Brian Fagan rejected the accusation and said the City was not trying to push residents out.

These reports do not prove that final decisions had already been made for every parcel. They do show that parkland, acquisition, replacement housing and redevelopment were part of the public discussion while residents were making permanent decisions about their homes.

2009-2010: Preserve the Neighborhood, Remake the Corridor

The Cedar Rapids City Council approved the Area Plans and supporting Action Plan on May 13, 2009. The City's full Neighborhood Planning Process report, dated September 2009, described Time Check and Taylor as stable residential neighborhoods made up mainly of one- and two-story single-family homes.

The report also recorded agreement that Time Check should retain a predominantly residential character, with business and housing reinvestment focused between Ellis Boulevard and the river. It said Time Check Park and other neighborhood institutions should be restored.

The same adopted framework proposed major physical changes. It mapped a greenway, levee and floodwall beside areas designated for housing and business reinvestment. It said the greenway would be realized through buyouts in an area generally extending from F Avenue to Penn Avenue and from First Street to Fourth Street. It proposed a continuous trail system and a new Riverside Drive. It focused housing reinvestment along Ellis Boulevard and between Ellis and the greenway, while identifying potential mixed-use and higher-intensity residential development along Ellis Boulevard and around neighborhood centers connecting to the greenway.

The North Area framework paired a buyout-created greenway and new Riverside Drive with housing and business reinvestment. Source: Neighborhood Planning Process, printed pages 32-33.

That is the first clear overlap in this record between the old plans and the development pattern visible in the corridor today. The record does not present a simple choice between preserving everything or replacing everything. It shows an adopted framework that sought to retain a residential neighborhood while changing land use, streets and residential intensity within the same corridor.

In 2009 and 2010, that corridor was not empty. People were still living there. Houses were still standing. Residents were rebuilding and fighting to remain part of the future being planned around them.

The signs said Don't tell us what to do. Tell us what you're doing. Others asked about disclosure and equal protection. My own house was covered with signs saying THIS HOUSE NOT FOR SALE.

These photographs document who was still there while the future use of the corridor was being decided.

2013-2014: The Commons on Ellis Boulevard

Housing returned to this stretch of Ellis Boulevard in stages. By September 2013, the City and Ahmann Investments were moving the development through the approval process. Construction continued into 2014.

The September 10, 2013 Council packet says the lots at 1320, 1324, 1328, 1332, 1336 and 1338 Ellis previously contained homes damaged in the 2008 flood. According to the City's own cover sheet, the City purchased the properties through the Voluntary Acquisition Program, demolished the homes it described as beyond repair, and joined the rezoning request as titleholder.

The packet's Planning Commission minutes also record City staff stating that the Ellis lots were purchased with HUD funding and could be sold for redevelopment, unlike FEMA-funded parcels. That is an official City statement in the record, but the acquisition files and deeds remain the strongest documents for independently confirming the funding and restrictions attached to each parcel.

Elsewhere in the same packet, City staff described Ellis Commons as a market-rate five-unit building at 1320 and 1328 Ellis Boulevard NW, detached homes at 1302 and 1310 Ellis Boulevard NW, and a four-unit rental building at 1332 through 1338 Ellis Boulevard NW.

Two weeks later, on September 24, 2013, the City Council authorized development agreements and special warranty deeds with NewBo Development Group LLC for all six City-owned parcels. The Council handled 1320, 1324 and 1328 Ellis through the Single Family New Construction Program and 1332, 1336 and 1338 Ellis through the Multi-Family New Construction Program. The accompanying resolutions state that the City acquired the parcels through the Voluntary Property Acquisition Program using federal CDBG funds. Construction was required to be completed by December 2014.

2018-2019: Ellis Flats

A video I posted on March 15, 2010 shows one of the homes along Ellis Boulevard near O Avenue awaiting demolition. A television news crew was present.

Eight years later, at its September 25, 2018 meeting, the Cedar Rapids City Council approved a special warranty deed conveying nine City-owned properties at 1606, 1614, 1618, 1626, 1628, 1632, 1634, 1642 and 1646 Ellis Boulevard NW to The Depot Development, LLC. The action was recorded as CIP/DID #DISP-0011-2017. The official agenda lists the deed as item 24(y).

The Council considered an Urban Revitalization Area for a housing development in the 1600 block of Ellis Boulevard on October 9, 2018. Two weeks later, it approved the final plat for The Commons Part Two on Ellis Boulevard First Addition, on land north of O Avenue and west of Ellis Boulevard.

These approvals concerned the later development in the 1600 block, now known as Ellis Flats, not the earlier Ellis Commons project in the 1300 block.

The official records establish that nine City-owned properties in the 1600 block were conveyed for redevelopment and that the City subsequently approved new housing there. The broader pattern does not depend on tracing one demolished house to one later building. Homes came down along this stretch of Ellis Boulevard, and denser housing followed.

2019: Ellis Landing and Two Different Paths

Another Ellis Boulevard project makes the contrast sharper.

The City has described flood-control acquisition as a long process in which homeowners were given time, flexibility and opportunities to negotiate. While existing residents lived with uncertainty, the City worked toward Ellis Landings, a new riverfront condominium development on the same stretch of Ellis Boulevard.

The City's own 2014 Development Committee minutes identify four City-owned properties at 1919, 1915, 1895 and 1871 Ellis Boulevard NW. The minutes say the City acquired the properties following the 2008 flood. They describe the vacant parcels as bordered by the Cedar River, Ellis Park and single-family residential property.

The same minutes say redevelopment would be contingent on integrating flood-protection infrastructure into the development plan. The selected project would have to meet U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standards and become part of the City's future flood-management system.

In December 2016, the City and Happel Enterprises jointly requested a planned-development zoning change for 1871 and 1895 Ellis Boulevard. On April 25, 2017, the City Council agenda included an Urban Revitalization Area designation for Ellis Landings, LLC and plans for a 27-unit residential building at those addresses. At the same meeting, the Council considered the plans and a Lease Purchase Agreement for the project's floodwall section, with an estimated cost and principal amount not to exceed $2,067,738.

At the June 2018 groundbreaking, KCRG reported that the project would contain 27 condominiums and a 16-foot floodwall, that developer Jim Happel had worked with the City on the design, and that condominium owners would receive a 10-year property-tax abatement.

KCRG also reported that 1871 Ellis was the location of Council member Ann Poe's childhood home. Poe described the groundbreaking as bittersweet and supported the idea of continuing a similar design farther down Ellis Boulevard. That family connection does not prove wrongdoing, and I am not claiming that it does. Its relevance is narrower: this was an address with family history, and the solution kept residential use on the site.

By June 2019, the City's own Flood Control System display described Ellis Landing as a private development that incorporated a floodwall, represented a $6.5 million total investment and contained 27 for-sale condominium units.

That same month, KCRG reported that Ellis Landings received approximately $2 million in City reimbursements. Flood Control Program Manager Rob Davis said the contribution represented the estimated cost of an earthen levee and that the City would connect the privately built wall to the larger flood-control system.

The market itself describes Ellis Landings as luxury riverfront housing. In September 2026, Realtor.com labeled units 205 and 202 "Luxury" and "Waterfront" and listed them at $425,000 and $427,500. Trulia's rental history for 1871 Ellis Boulevard shows a unit offered at $2,250 a month in September 2023 and $2,950 a month in December 2025. Those are asking prices for particular units, not prices for every unit in the building.

The contrast was not across town. It was on the same block.

A March 14, 2023 City Council agenda listed total acquisitions for the West Side Flood Control System at 1841, 1855, 1861, 1865 and 1867 Ellis Boulevard. Ellis Landing is at 1871. KCRG reported in February 2023 that the City planned to acquire the remaining 24 properties and that homeowners who could not reach an agreement faced the eminent-domain process.

The Ellis Landing developers did not create the original acquisition plan, and these records do not establish wrongdoing by the developers. The relevant comparison is how the City approached the two situations.

For the new development, the City made flood-acquired land available for redevelopment, created a path through zoning and an Urban Revitalization Area, collaborated on engineering, provided a 10-year tax abatement and authorized up to $2,067,738 for the floodwall section.

For existing residents on the same block and elsewhere in Time Check, the record shows acquisition notices, relocation and, when agreements failed, eminent domain. The letters sent to us do not document a comparable effort to study how flood protection and the homes already standing might coexist.

Not every parcel is identical, and flood-control design may require different property interests or engineering solutions at different locations. Ellis Landing nevertheless shows that, at this location, the City approved a project in which residential use and flood protection were designed to coexist and committed public money to the flood-control component.

Time spent waiting for the government to take your home is not the same thing as being given options. It is not the same thing as collaboration. And it is not the same thing as being asked: How can we make this work so you can stay?

For new riverfront housing, the City's answer was engineering and accommodation.

For the people who had already survived, rebuilt and stayed, the answer was acquisition.

Why was the same willingness to solve problems never extended to the people who were already here?

2025-2026: City-Owned Land Was Approved for Housing

By 2025 and 2026, the City was moving additional City-owned property on the neighborhood side of Ellis Boulevard toward denser housing. Two separate redevelopment tracks matter here. They should not be blended together.

Capital B LLC: Four Ellis Boulevard Parcels

On July 8, 2025, City staff presented the proposed disposition of 1417 and 1423 Ellis Boulevard NW. The City presentation says the two vacant parcels were acquired in 2011, remained in the 100-year floodplain and were offered with a preference for housing. It also tied the request to the Northwest Neighborhood Action Plan's call for higher-intensity development along Ellis Boulevard.

The July 8, 2025 presentation called for market-rate townhomes and tied the proposal to higher-intensity development along Ellis Boulevard. The project later expanded to four parcels and eight units.

By August, the project had expanded. The August 26, 2025 City presentation described a development agreement covering 1100-1106 and 1417-1423 Ellis Boulevard NW. It called for two four-unit buildings, eight market-rate rental units in all, and a stated $1.6 million capital investment.

The presentation said the City would dispose of the four parcels for their stated fair-market value of $23,200. It also described a 10-year, 100 percent rebate of increased property taxes, estimating that the project would generate $250,000 over ten years and that $210,000 would be rebated. Those figures were estimates in the presentation, not actual taxes collected or paid.

Time Check LLC, Then The Parkline LLC: A Different Site

On July 22, 2025, the Council accepted a separate proposal from Time Check LLC for seven City-owned properties near Time Check Park: 1015, 1017 and 1035 Ellis Boulevard; 609 J Avenue; and 1012, 1018 and 1034 Sixth Street NW. The Council packet described a 36-unit residential proposal. It expressly said that accepting the proposal did not transfer the property and that a development agreement would have to return to the Council.

That 2025 packet identifies the parcels as City-owned. It does not state when, why or with which funding source the City acquired them. This article does not assume those facts.

Iowa Secretary of State records show that Time Check LLC was dissolved on March 12, 2026. That does not establish that The Parkline LLC is the same legal entity or merely a renamed company.

The City's later records establish the narrower connection. On March 10, 2026, the Council accepted a proposal for three additional City-owned properties at 604, 614 and 620 I Avenue NW. The July 28, 2026 Council packet says both requests for proposals were awarded to the same developer and that a single development agreement was finalized with The Parkline LLC, an entity of Tyler Oswood.

The City's July 28, 2026 presentation says both requests for proposals went to the same developer and a single agreement was finalized with The Parkline LLC. Click the image to open the presentation.

The July 28 presentation described a stated $7.85 million investment, four multifamily buildings containing 36 units, one four-unit building and one three-unit townhome building. The listed unit counts total 43.

The agreement called for units at 60 percent and 80 percent of area median income, along with market-rate units. It called for disposition of the City property for $1 and a 15-year, 100 percent rebate of increased property taxes. The City estimated that the project would generate $1.5 million in increased taxes over 15 years, with an estimated $1.3 million rebated to the developer. These were projections, not taxes already generated or paid.

Construction was scheduled in phases from the fourth quarter of 2026 through the third quarter of 2030. The Council approved the agreement at its July 28 meeting.

The entity named in the agreement changed. The City's record says the developer and the development continued.

October 2026: Two More City-Owned Sites

The October 6, 2026 agenda, items 24–25, lists redevelopment proposals from Allan Development Company, an entity of Paul Brundell, for 220 Ellis Boulevard NW, and Prairie Rose Rental Company, an entity of Sandy and James Locke, for 916 5th Street SE. These add two sites to the disposition trail. Approval, sale terms, acquisition funding and deed restrictions remain unverified. Archived agenda text.

What Connects the Old Plans to the New Development

The connection is not that every parcel was acquired through the same program. It was not. The connection is not that every piece of land carries the same legal restrictions. The available records do not establish that.

The connection is the corridor and the documented policy direction.

The City described Time Check as a stable residential neighborhood of one- and two-story single-family homes and recorded agreement that its predominantly residential character should remain. The adopted framework also called for housing reinvestment and higher-intensity residential development along Ellis Boulevard.

The 2013 Council packet documented new housing on specific lots the City said it had purchased through its Voluntary Acquisition Program. Later Council records approved or advanced additional multifamily housing on City-owned land along Ellis Boulevard and near Time Check Park, including market-rate rentals and the proposed 43-unit Parkline project.

Those actions occurred at different times and through different programs. They do not establish a single legal or funding chain. They do establish a repeated planning and redevelopment pattern in Time Check and along Ellis Boulevard.

That is the old-to-new connection.

What the Record Proves, and What It Does Not

The record does not prove one secret plan. It does not prove that every parcel was acquired with the same money or carries the same deed restrictions.

Federal regulation 44 CFR 80.19 applies to acquisitions for FEMA open-space projects addressing flood hazards. It requires those properties to be dedicated and maintained as open space in perpetuity. That restriction cannot be assigned to a particular parcel without verifying its acquisition file, funding source and deed.

The record does prove the following:

• Frank King publicly expected large areas near the river to become parkland while residents were still recovering from the flood.
• The 2009 adopted framework described Time Check and Taylor as stable residential neighborhoods made up mainly of one- and two-story single-family homes. It also called for housing reinvestment and higher-intensity residential development along Ellis Boulevard.
• The 2013 Council packet says the City acquired specific Ellis Commons lots through its Voluntary Acquisition Program, demolished the flood-damaged homes and participated in returning those lots to denser housing.
• The City approved a 27-unit riverfront condominium development at Ellis Landings, coordinated its floodwall, provided a 10-year property-tax abatement and authorized up to $2,067,738 for the floodwall section.
• The 2025 and 2026 City records advanced additional multifamily housing on City-owned property along Ellis Boulevard and near Time Check Park, including market-rate units and the proposed 43-unit Parkline project.

That is why Frank King's warning deserves to be remembered. He was not speaking with eighteen years of hindsight. He was speaking while people of limited means were making irreversible decisions about their homes and while the City's preferred framework was taking shape around them.

The people standing on Ellis Boulevard in 2010 were not standing on empty redevelopment land.

We were standing in our neighborhood.

The replacements were not equivalent in form, density or price. Single-family homes gave way to apartments, townhomes and condominiums, including market-rate rentals and luxury riverfront units.

To those of us who watched Time Check's modest housing disappear, this does not feel like replacement housing for the people who lived here. It feels like housing that had functioned as the neighborhood's affordable housing stock was replaced by housing many former residents could never afford.

And eighteen years later, one house is still standing.

Mine.