DES MOINES, Iowa — A petition to have an old Gordman's store not become a storage unit on the east side of Des Moines is close to reaching its goal.
The old establishment is located at 2590 Hubbell Avenue.
Heaven Chamberlain has lived on the east side for 11 years and started the petition.
She said residents in the neighborhood were not aware of the storage units.
“This is the first they’ve heard of it. Some little kid from the east side saying, ‘Hey, they’re building a storage unit.’ And they’re like, ‘What?’ Then, they say an explicative and they sign the petition,” said Chamberlain.
Linda Westergaard, the councilwoman for that area of Des Moines, told Local 5 property owners within 250 feet of the Gordman's were notified.
The zoning decision and order papers show that Goodrich Des Moines, a self-storage company, wants to turn the building into self-service storage.
Westergaard said the building is zoned for commercial use and was granted approval for storage units.
“We do have, just like throughout our entire city, there are neighborhoods without multiple grocery stores. There are grocery stores. They’re just not as close as what some people would like," explained Westergaard.
The petition against the storage unit can be viewed here.
If the building turned into storage units, the owner of the building has conditions to follow, including:
- No outside storage,
- Comply with city requirements,
- Any modifications must follow building and fire codes, and
- All excess pavement that is not being used must be removed and replaced with landscaping.
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