The 60-unit apartment building, Timber Lofts, was constructed with a technique known as mass timber which provides a lower carbon footprint.
There's a timber cathedral on Ingersoll Avenue. Upstairs, on the third floor, is an illuminated memento of the building that once stood on its site -- the Star gas station's old sign.
"You might remember the Star gas station. I remember it all too well, because the Star gas station wasn't just an under-utilized property; it was a problem property," said Josh Mandelbaum, the City Council member who represents the Des Moines neighborhood. "There were even shootings here."
He looked around the new structure's first floor commercial bay, under a towering ceiling of wood grain mosaic, and added, "This is the best type of solution we could possibly have."
Iowa's first zero-carbon certified building, the Star Lofts was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday afternoon. The culmination of several sources of financing and four years of planning, construction and intense discussions about what Iowa Economic Development Director Debi Durham said should be the "future" of housing in Iowa.
"This milestone is a powerful reminder of what's possible when we commit to sustainable development," said Durham, who also attended the ribbon cutting.
The building's construction and materials are geared to net zero carbon emissions: low-carbon concrete and mass timber -- a material made by pressing smaller planks of wood together, forming one large piece, similar to wood beams found in churches and historic structures.
Through those choices and the building's high efficiency HVAC and lighting, Star Lofts achieves a 98% reduction in carbon emissions. Its builder, Cutler Development, also installed on- and off-site solar panels to bring the remaining net carbon emissions down to zero.
"The United Nations has a statistic that approximately 40% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide comes from buildings," said Scott Cutler of the husband-wife duo behind the company, which worked along with Anawim Housing, a nonprofit devoted to meeting housing needs for vulnerable people. "To build affordable housing, we, as an industry, need ways to do that without contributing towards climate change."
Future tenant glad to 'finally' find a home
On Dec. 3, the three-story building will welcome its first residential tenants to its three studio, 14 one-bedroom and three two-bedroom units. All are affordable, with 20% of its units reserved for tenants who earn no more than 30% of the area median income, which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines at $23,750 for an individual. Another 20% are for those at or below 60% area median income and the remainder rent to tenants at or below 80% of area median income.
Jeni Feehan, who holds a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher from the HUD program that subsidizes rent paid to private landlords, will be one of the first to call the Star Lofts home.
She's been waiting to move in for a while; Feehan attended the building's groundbreaking in spring 2023. She doesn't have a couch yet, but she'll bring a bookshelf, her chair and a cat tree with her.
"A lot of apartment complex(es) say that they're Section 8, but they won't go down to what Section8 will pay," Feehan said. "It's hard to get into those apartment complexes. I looked and looked, and then finally I found this. It was like, 'Oh, thank goodness.'"
The Cutlers are planning to divide the 6,500 square feet of space on the first floor into four separate spaces for their commercial tenants. One of the smaller spots will be occupied by Zenko Tea, a locally owned bubble tea business.
The other three tenants have yet to be announced, though Molly Cutler said to expect a "mixture" of restaurant and retail users.
Announced in tandem with the Star Loft's ribbon-cutting was a new project just a half mile east on Ingersoll.
The Cutlers are preparing to redevelop the former Bank of America building at 3422 Ingersoll Ave. into a mixed-use building with 30 apartments. The project, on the southeast corner of Ingersoll and 35th Street opposite the Price Chopper supermarket, would closely resemble the Star Lofts -- but a bit bigger.
It will be another eco-friendly, mass-timber building with carbon-neutral features and commercial space on the first floor.
"Our mission as a company is to try to respond to two pretty significant societal needs right now," said Scott Cutler. "One being the need for additional housing and the other being structures that don't contribute to greenhouse gas emissions."
Though the project is still in its early stages, the Cutlers said they could break ground early next winter and finish in late 2026.