Since its inception in February 1847, the University of Iowa has been embedded in the heart of Iowa City.

The Pentacrest, widely considered the center of the UI campus, backs up against Clinton Street and its wall of businesses for students to enjoy. University establishments, such as the Jefferson Building, are interloped with downtown buildings. The Old Capitol Mall will soon be acquired by the UI, transforming a longtime Iowa City staple fully into a university one.

Even the outskirts of the city have flashes of black and gold where sparse university buildings stand or fans live and choose to show their school spirit through Hawkeye-themed decorations. The UI and Iowa City are intertwined, and city and university officials do not see that connection ending anytime soon.

Rod Lehnertz, UI senior vice president for finance and operations, said he has been to countless campuses in his over 30-year stint working for the university. However, the UI’s proximity to the city is unique compared to other schools, which creates a unique dynamic with the city itself.

As the UI’s enrollment has the potential to increase, so does the physical demand for space in buildings. Officials will lean on the connection between the university and Iowa City to plan for the future to benefit all communities, Lehnertz said.

“I know of no other university that has such an immediate physical relationship with the community that hosts it,” Lehnertz said. “I also know of no other community and university that has a better, as we refer to it, ‘Town and Gown’ relationship than us. We may have some challenges, but we far outnumber those with the partnerships and the ways we work together.”

UI’s historic ties to Iowa City

The university’s presence in town began modestly. Iowa City was the capital of Iowa at the time of the university’s founding, with the Capitol Building resting on a four-block patch of land named Capitol Square, which would later become the UI Pentacrest.

The university’s first permanent building, now known as the Old Capitol Building, was not deemed a university building until the state government moved to Des Moines in 1857. Iowa City obtained the university by giving up being the state’s capital city.

As the first UI building, the Old Capitol served multiple purposes, including as a law school, a library, a museum, a dormitory, and a gymnasium. Changes to the university campus began in the 1900s with the designation of the Pentacrest and its buildings.

“Iowa City was platted with blocks identified for education,” Lehnertz said. “There was a defined amount of space for a university, a university yet to really be envisioned and developed, and so it was confined geographically from the beginning.”

The expansions outside of those designated plots began in 1910 when the university started purchasing undeveloped farmland west of the Iowa River, Lehnertz said. That established the university’s engagement with its surrounding neighborhoods and the balancing act of addressing the community members’ needs with the UI’s.

“[The UI has] certainly grown, but we have tried to be careful of our edge to protect the neighborhoods around us,” Lehnertz said. “We are as vibrant a university as the community is, and so those edges and residential areas are meaningful to the university as well, and I think that’s often called into question whether that’s really true.”

Today, the university has 360 campus buildings and 2,106 acres, according to the UI Facilities Management website. While the campus has expanded significantly since the 1800s, the UI is focused now on “rightsizing” — using campus buildings and space it already has to avoid purchasing or constructing structures unnecessarily.

Rightsizing and using UI-owned existing spaces within the city, like the Old Capitol Mall and the Jefferson Building, allows the university to provide for the students and the wider Iowa City community, he added.

“We’re not looking to gobble up land …We are really rightsizing in a sort of a constriction, downsizing way, but we do now recognize that where we occupy space could be downtown Iowa City,” Lehnertz said. “It’s good for both of us, it certainly can be, because it brings people to the campus and to the downtown.”

UI, IC officials work together to benefit community

The partnership between the UI and Iowa City officials grew strong long before David Kieft, UI senior director of university business and real estate, arrived on campus in 2008. As a university employee and a member of the Iowa City Downtown District Board, Kieft often sees projects that overlap between the UI and the city.

Since many UI projects utilize Iowa City resources like water or sewage, most university plans are discussed with workers like city managers and the city staff who are involved with urban planning, Kieft said.

“We develop a sort of open-book trust with all of that,” Kieft said. “They share what’s going on with them, we share where we are. It’s a win-win for everybody. The city needs the university and the students and the vitality and the vibrancy of what we bring, and we need that relationship with the city to also create that very cohesive, seamless relationship.”

That cohesive, seamless relationship is the result of years of work between the city and the UI to develop a mutual respect for each entity’s plans, he said.

“We’ve been so deliberate about breaking down those walls, and it also has helped that the city manager of Iowa City has been there for a decade or more,” Kieft said. “We have these longtime, binding relationships, and they’re all Hawkeye fans, and we’re supportive of everything that they’re trying to do, and they get the importance of it.”

Chris O’Brien, Iowa City’s deputy city manager, echoed Kieft’s sentiments and added that the presence of the university means contributions to Iowa City financially and culturally. The city and the UI are linked, whether it be with campus activities, Iowa City events, or the way students interact with businesses and residents.

The linking of Iowa City to the UI helps create interest in the city itself, O’Brien said. That relationship and the interest it creates is often desired for the city by its residents, he added.

“For every building [the UI has] space in, there’s activity levels, and there’s support that they’re bringing with that,” O’Brien said. “I can’t say that I’ve heard an overabundance of complaints about that. I think everybody is appreciative, especially [of] the opportunities it brings when the university has activity, not just on the campus but in the downtown area.”

O’Brien added that while there may be occasional hiccups between the city and the UI during projects, the respect each has for the other and the desire to communicate effectively prevent issues from arising.

“Anything we’re working on has an impact on them, and almost everything they’re working on has an impact on us,” O’Brien said. “That continual communication, I think it just helps streamline those projects to where they know going in what everybody’s looking for. So, it’s rare that you would come across any surprises.”

This communication and collaboration will continue as the UI looks to complete projects on its 10-year master plan, such as the renovations to Mayflower Residence Hall, the Iowa Memorial Union, and UI Health Care buildings on campus.

It will also be essential as the university acquires the rest of the Old Capitol Mall, also known as the University Capitol Centre, in October 2027. At that point, the UI will own the mall, except restaurants like Buffalo Wild Wings and Raising Cane’s, which operate on leases, Lehnertz said.

“The details for how those arrangements, leases, and management will be addressed have yet to be determined, and while we expect that those portions of the building would remain as taxable property, that too is not yet confirmed,” he said.

However, this new ownership will likely shift the finances the mall produces. University buildings are tax-exempt, meaning no property taxes are paid on those locations. According to Iowa City property tax reports, the sections of the mall that are not under UI ownership paid nearly $262,600 combined in property taxes for the 2023 year.

Those property taxes will no longer be paid once the UI owns the building, leaving a potential loss in finances for Iowa City. The city’s accessor, Brad Comer, said the loss is typically made up over time by those tax bill amounts being spread out to the general public.

“It really comes down to the city and the county,” Comer said. “They have budget needs, and whatever they need to pay, the bills get spread out to all the taxpayers. And if the university buys property out of that and reduces the amount of people that that tax is being spread across, then it’s going to increase taxes for other people.”

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The community will not immediately feel the increase, Comer said. Property values are reevaluated every two years, which is when property tax amounts change. He added that a university purchase does not strictly mean a loss in revenue for Iowa City.

“The university brings a lot of money and investment to the community, too, so it’s not strictly just saying that [when] the university buys something that it’s a cost,” Comer said.

O’Brien echoed this idea and said the property tax loss is also often made up in new developments in Iowa City that then bring revenue in.

“Over time, you hope that if you’re a thriving community, which Iowa City is, that people will want to build new things here, and as that happens, whether it’s a business coming into town or whether somebody redevelops a property, that’s how you’ll be able to make up for those funds,” O’Brien said.

However, the city does not want new development solely to make up for lost revenue. New developments, both university and otherwise, benefit the community beyond just bringing in money, he said.

Additionally, Lehnertz said the university is able to provide more than a financial gain with its presence in Iowa City.

“The City of Iowa City has changed over the last decade and a half to recognize that there are benefits beyond just tax roll for every square foot,” Lehnertz said. “We are working together, bringing people downtown who then shop in the shops downtown and eat lunch downtown, and it’s been a very effective, symbiotic relationship.”

The tax exemption also applies to property owned by Iowa City, Johnson County, or other state and federal entities, Kieft said. The university, however, contributes to the success of downtown Iowa City while being tax-exempt by being a financial contributor to the downtown district and the way the university community interacts with the downtown community.

“The success of the university is directly tied to the success of downtown, and the success of downtown is directly tied to the success of the university,” Kieft said. “We are each other’s ‘front doors.’ The adjacency and integration of the university and downtown are part of what makes Iowa City so unique.”

For Kieft, the UI’s overall impact on Iowa City and its community is a positive one, aided by the partnership between the city and the university that is likely to remain strong as time passes.

“I  think sometimes there’s a perception or appeal by some that the university has too large of a presence, or maybe [there’s] an overemphasis on the university,” Kieft said. “I understand, and certainly, I’m going to be sort of biased because I work here and I view all the good things that it creates, the vibrancy that it helps create, the energy that it creates.”