November 23, 2015
Twelve of the 26 apartments in the Mayflower Community’s new Watertower Square have welcomed residents in the past month, and nine more apartments will have residents by January. Residents of three other apartments will move in next year, leaving only two of the 26 apartments unoccupied. The new residences are the culmination of five years of planning and construction.
The Mayflower Community already owned the northernmost lot on the west side of the 600 block of Broad St. west of its main campus in 2010 when the four lots owned by the former Assembly of God Church became available for purchase. Mayflower joined a partnership with the Grinnell College Board of Trustees and the Claude W. and Dolly Ahrens Foundation and six couples to acquire the former church’s lots, and Mayflower then acquired the southernmost lot in the block in 2013.
Discussion in 2010 began on possible uses for the land, and Mayflower engaged a researcher who predicted that the senior living cohort in Grinnell, people 55 years old and above, would grow slightly, creating demand for 30 to 35 new independent apartments in the price range from $150,000 to $250,000.
In the fall of 2013 Mayflower announced it would build a 26-apartment building west of Broad St. if commitments to occupy at least 20 of those apartments could be secured be secured by the summer of 2014. Ground was broken in August of 2014 on the $10.3 million project, and the first residents moved in in late October of 2015.
