School District May Be Moving To Lottery Building

We told you back in January that the lottery has plans to move, and now there’s been another big development in that process. It looks like Des Moines Public Schools could move into our current headquarters building just west of downtown Des Moines.

The school district has announced an offer to purchase the building at 2323 Grand Ave. in Des Moines. We think it looks like a great fit for the building and the neighborhood, and the offer will be presented to the Iowa Lottery Board at its meeting on Tuesday. The offer also would need to be approved by the Des Moines School Board, so this is just the first step in the process.

From the school district’s description of its plan, it will be able to accomplish what the lottery can’t as the business currently operating in the building. The school district will be able to buy the property and do the major repairs necessary to the building’s mechanical systems while the building is empty, and then move in once the work is done. That’s been one of the major complications that the lottery has faced, and it certainly looks like a plan that makes sense to us.
The lottery is selling the property “as is” and we’ve been very up front that there are some repairs that need to be made to the building.

Proceeds from the sale of the building will ultimately go the lottery’s bottom line in terms of its results to the state.

We don’t have a specific date yet for when the lottery’s headquarters location will move to the office building we’re purchasing in Clive. But we anticipate that will happen later this year, with the school district tentatively planning to take possession of our current building in late 2014, assuming that everything is approved.