2025 January Newsletter

Message from 2025 Board Chair, Jason Mortvedt

Dear Members of the Ankeny Business and Industry Collaborative,
As we settle into 2025, I am honored to step into the role of Board Chair for this incredible organization. I’m humbled by the opportunity to serve alongside you as we work together to enable prosperity and vitality for businesses and the Ankeny community.

This new year brings notable leadership changes at the local, regional and national levels. Amidst these changes, ABIC’s mission - to enhance the business community in Ankeny through advocacy, engagement and learning - is more important than ever.

It is our aim to provide value for our ABIC investor businesses by standing as a trusted source for practical business information on key business topics. We encourage you to join us at our member meetings, where we’ll continue to conduct the short surveys to gather your input on what issues and activities matter most. For example, many of our members shared with us the desire to have more opportunities for CEO’s to engage with each other. So we intend to bring back our popular CEO Roundtable meeting in 2025 – stay tuned for more information on that!

As we reflect on the milestones of 2024, I’m reminded of the power of collaboration. ABIC is strong because of you—our members. Thank you for your ongoing support, and for making Ankeny a place where businesses flourish, and the community prospers. Here’s to a year of shared growth, new beginnings, and continued progress.

Warm regards,
Jason Mortvedt, Kinzler Corporation
Board Chair | Ankeny Business and Industry Collaborative

February 21 Member Meeting & Lunch

Please join us for the first Member Meeting of 2025 on Friday, February 21 from 11:30AM to 1:00PM. The meeting will take place at Snyder & Associates at 2727 SW Snyder Blvd., Ankeny in the south building (follow signs when entering the parking lot).

Join us as our local legislators Mike Bousselot (Iowa Senate District 21), Heather Matson (Iowa House District 42), and Ryan Weldon (Iowa House District 41) will provide updates on their work during the 2025 legislative session. This is a great opportunity to hear about key initiatives and engage in meaningful discussion. Come prepared with your questions!

Our thanks to John Deere Des Moines Works our lunch sponsor, and Snyder & Associates for hosting our meeting.

Host

Lunch Sponsor

WELCOME NEW INVESTOR

Please join us in welcoming Bob Joss and his team from Cummins! In 2023, Cummins was honored as a Salute to Industry winner for their reinvestment in our community with their new site on the east side of I-35

Thank You, Dave!

Ankeny Business & Industry Collaborative thanks Dave Nelson, past president & CEO for Pratum, for his service on the Board of Directors and for serving as 2023 ABIC Chair! Dave plans to stay involved and attend ABIC meetings and events, so we’ll see him around soon!

New ABIC Board Member

We are pleased to welcome Mark Land to the Ankeny Business & Industry Collaborative Board of Directors. Mark currently serves as Vice President at Snyder & Associates, Inc. where he has been an engineer for over 30 years. Mark is a member of the Board of Directors for the company. Snyder & Associates, Inc. is a 325-person engineering and planning firm with offices in Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Mark heads the environmental business unit for the Ankeny office. Mark has worked on numerous projects in Central Iowa including Lauridsen Skatepark, Iowa Events Center, Prairie Ridge Sports Complex, Fourmile Creek Watershed Study, and is currently serving as the owner’s representative for the ICON Water Trails downtown projects. Mark is a past chair of the Greater Des Moines Partnership Affiliates Presidents' Council in 2010 and was the 2009 President of the Ankeny Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves as the co-chair of the Public Relations Committee for the Ankeny Chamber of Commerce, Treasurer of the Wiedenman Family Foundation, board member for the Ankeny Leadership Institute, and Chair of the Environmental Conference planning committee for the Iowa Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is married to Amy Land and together they have six children. His two adult daughters are college graduates (Iowa State and UNI) and his son is a senior at Ankeny High School (soon to be at Iowa State). In his spare time, Mark likes to golf and celebrate the Cyclones next big win.

Leadership Transition in Ankeny: Key Changes in City Government

Ankeny is currently undergoing significant leadership changes, bringing new faces and perspectives to its city government.

City Manager Transition
City Manager David Jones, who has served Ankeny for over a decade, has announced his departure. Jones played a critical role in overseeing the city’s growth and development during his tenure. In response, the City Council has initiated a search for a new city manager to continue the progress made under his leadership. A professional search firm will be hired to assist in identifying a successor capable of steering Ankeny through its next phase of growth. Mike Schrock, Assistant City Manager, was appoint Ankeny's interim City Manager on January 23, 2025.

New Mayor
Ankeny has welcomed its first female mayor, Bobbi Bentz, marking a historic milestone for the city. Bentz steps into the role following the departure of former mayor, Mayor Mark Holm, who was elected to the Polk County Board of Supervisors for the 3rd District.

New City Council Member
The Ankeny City Council has a new member, Dustin Graber, who was unanimously appointed to fill the seat vacated by Bobbi Bentz. Graber, a long-time Ankeny resident was selected from a pool of 36 applicants. His experience includes eight years on the Ankeny Community School District Board, where he served as president for part of his tenure. Graber’s appointment brings additional expertise and dedication to the council as the city navigates this period of transition.

With these leadership changes, Ankeny is poised to build on its successes and embrace new opportunities for growth and development.

Four Questions for Ankeny's First Female Mayor, Bobbi Bentz

What are your top priorities for Ankeny during your time as mayor, and how do you plan to address them?
As the newly appointed Mayor, my top priority revolves around ensuring smooth transitions during significant leadership changes among the Council and City management. These changes present both opportunities and challenges. I bring unique historical insight to navigating these changes successfully.

As Ankeny continues to grow, what strategies do you have in mind to ensure that development is balanced with preserving the city’s unique character and community feel?
One of the Council's strategic priorities I’ve been a strong proponent of is maintaining Ankeny’s hometown feel. As a proud Ankeny native, this means many things to me. It’s annual traditions such as Summerfest and the Christmas tree lighting, it’s placemaking such as investing in Uptown, it’s fostering relationships with Iowa staples such as John Deere and Casey’s, it’s supporting local small businesses, and it’s proudly supporting our school district. I’ve been exploring ideas with other Ankeny community leaders on how we can strengthen these relationships and our collective pride and progress of “Team Ankeny”. Similarly, preserving Ankeny’s unique character means revamping our strategic and long-term comprehensive plans which are beginning to age given our pace of growth. This is where the community, Council, and City staff directly influence growth patterns, design standards, and regional engagement both in the short (1-3 years) and longer term (3-20 years).

How do you plan to engage with residents and ensure their voices are heard in shaping the future of Ankeny?
I’ve always been a believer in having both formal and informal engagement of residents to ensure a variety of voices are heard in shaping the future of Ankeny. I’m also someone who follows a “trust but verify” approach. For example, the City uses a variety of public forums, public hearings, commissions, boards, and citizen surveys to provide formal direction and feedback. Informally, social media and one-on-one conversations can provide immediate insight or shed light on the need for improved communication. It’s important to have a variety of meetings like this to capture a diversity of opinion and to informally verify what is heard from formal feedback.

How does it feel to be Ankeny’s first female Mayor?
Being the first female mayor of Ankeny is a tremendous honor, but more importantly, I want the community to have confidence that my background and experience provide the leadership transition the City needs at this time. Being a full-time working mom, in a dual income household, juggling a variety of activities and all that life throws at me daily resonates with everyone in some way and reflects our community fairly well. We all balance various responsibilities and roles, and Mayor is one of mine among mom, employee, volunteer, wife, daughter, etc. My focus is on leading the City effectively, representing all residents, and working collaboratively with the Council, City staff, and community. My goal is to manage this time of transition and continue to move the City forward, and I’m confident we have the right people in place to do just that.

Public Input on South Ankeny Boulevard Revitalization Project

This chart, shared with the Ankeny City Council, shows how residents and stakeholders ranked uses they would like to see in the South Ankeny Boulevard from Oralabor Road to First Street. The city is reviewing the corridor in hopes of revitalizing it and creating a sustainable commercial district that will complement the vibrant areas of South Delaware Avenue and the District at Prairie Trail. Chart created by consulting company Confluence and provided by the city of Ankeny.

As reported by Michael Crumb in the Business Record on January 8, 2025, South Ankeny Boulevard needs to feature more sit-down restaurants, mixed-use development and retail, and multifamily residential development, according to public input shared during this week’s Ankeny City Council meeting. Christopher Shires, principal with Des Moines-based consulting firm Confluence, presented the results of public input sessions, stakeholder interviews and an online survey with council members during their meeting on Monday. It was the latest step in the city’s efforts to revitalize the South Ankeny Boulevard corridor from Oralabor Road to First Street. In his presentation, Shires said members of the public and stakeholders in the area described the corridor as tired, busy and crowded. Key words used by the public for what the future could look like were cohesive, attractive, and well planned.

“When we talk about the biggest strengths of the corridor, we heard about the unique businesses, the diversity of ownership, that there is traffic, and then some of those nearby activities and things going on, such as DMACC, the trail and the highway,” Shires said. Things people would like to see changed are more trees and consistent landscaping, more mixed-use development and addressing traffic issues. Shires said a “good mix of land use is important — multifamily, retail, office, industrial, a need for beautification and revitalization of some of the older properties.”

People also expressed a need to improve pedestrian and bicycle access in the area. The South Ankeny Boulevard corridor drew 2.6 million visitors over the past 12 months. More than a half million of those were unique visits, Shires said. He also said visitors spend an average of 84 minutes in the corridor area. “So it’s more than just traffic driving through it; people are spending time here, visiting here and shopping here,” Shires said. He said there were also questions about branding the corridor.

Shires’ presentation followed the collection of input from an online survey, a public input meeting last fall and stakeholder interviews. The next steps, he said, will be for Confluence to develop recommendations for improvements and the collection of additional public input. Recommendations to the council are expected this spring.

The city launched the study of the South Ankeny Boulevard corridor last fall in hopes of creating a commercial district that will be sustainable and complement the vibrant shopping areas on Delaware Avenue and the District at Prairie Trail. “The reason we’re looking at this corridor is it was a very traditional highway-oriented commercial development area,” Derek Lord, the city’s economic development director, said last fall. “It was kind of the center of the city’s commercial area in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. As the interstate was developed, a lot of that activity moved east, and more recently the District at Prairie Trail has attracted significant consumer retail investment to the west. This corridor is uniquely positioned 1 mile west of Delaware and 1 mile east of the District, and we want to do our part to identify what the vision for this area should be and work to attract new investment to make sure this corridor remains a viable commercial shopping district in our community.”

The revitalization process will take time, but the city is committed to ensuring the long-term vibrancy of South Ankeny Boulevard.

Did You Miss the December 21 Member Meeting?

We had a fantastic turnout for our final meeting of 2024—thank you all for attending!

Our Economic Development Panel featured Jenna Kimberley of Kimberley Development Corporation, Marcus Pitts of JLL, and Derek Lord from the City of Ankeny. Moderated by Jason Mortvedt, the panel addressed insightful questions from both Jason and the audience, sharing valuable information.

Mark your calendars! Our next meeting is on Friday, February 21 at Snyder & Associates, Inc. We look forward to seeing you there!

Also at the December meeting, Jason Mortvedt, 2025 ABIC Board Chair thanked Jenna Kimberley for serving as 2024 Board Chair. Jenna now moves to immediate past chair and will continue to serve on the board through December 31, 2025.

january 2025 newsletter 01/29/25 | Issue 1