What are bike amenities anyway?

This year in downtown Des Moines, more than 2,300 new living units are planned to open. Several developments promote what are described as bike amenities to prospective tenants.

Even if you aren’t planning a move to downtown Des Moines, we thought that you—as a regular reader of BikeIowa.com—would want to be in the know what bike amenities are all about—just in case your neighbor or office mate asked what’s up with all this downtown bike stuff.

Two developments trumpet bike amenities. The Harbach Lofts, located at West Fifth Street and ML King recently opened 103 units in two historic warehouses. The Harbach Lofts are located on the ML King Trail and just a couple of blocks from the historic Fifth Street Bridge, which reopened last fall to bike riders and pedestrians. The Harbach is about 90 percent leased.

Bici Flats at 1405 SE 1st Street (across the street from Mullet’s) isn’t shy about its bicycle roots; bici is Italian for bicycle. In June, Bici Flats will begin leasing 154 units in three new buildings. Three popular paved trails are just a few pedal strokes away.

Recently, we sat down with Kent Mauck, co-owner of the Harbach Lofts and Alexander Grgurich, development analyst for Nelson Construction & Development (Bici Flats developer), to describe features that appeal to the cycling community—or even tenants with just one bike to his/her name.

Alexander: We’ve discovered that you can never build enough bike storage space for tenants. When we opened the Fleming Building (96 units) in 2013, our bike storage room filled up the first day. It was on a first come, first served basis. When we expanded the room, it filled the same day with bikes. The bike storage rooms have secure wall hooks; tenants lock their bikes to the rack. There is not charge to use the bike storage room. See photo of Fleming Building bike storage area.

We had the same “good problem” at the AP Lofts—the bike storage space filled instantly. Ditto for our other Des Moines properties with bike storage: e300 (Zombie Burger is a first-floor tenant) and the historic Des Moines Building. Generally, we have a waiting list for bike storage.

For our properties, bike storage has become a mandatory amenity. And for marketing, we’ve found it’s important to list bike features. It’s not the No. 1 criteria for prospective tenants, but always of interest. And for some perspective tenants, bikes activate the interest in our properties. Maggie Kemp, Bici Flats leasing manager, reports about half of prospective tenants bring up bikes in the conversation.

At Bici Flats (biciflats.com), we’re kicking it up a notch. There’s space in every unit to store a bike in the mudroom right by the door. But we expect some tenants will store bikes on their balcony. In every unit, there’s a direct path from the entry door to the balcony.

At the ground level of Building 1, tenants will have access to a workroom where they can wash bikes and use a bike repair stand similar to the Dero FixIt stations seen around Des Moines.

Kent: We took a different approach for the Harbach Lofts (harbachlofts.com). We’re located at the intersection of two of Des Moines’ busiest bike trails. Our St. Kilda Café, opening in mid-May, will become a major destination at the confluence of the trails. It was natural that we provide our residents with convenient bike storage and maintenance options in each of our two buildings.

Our bicycle areas have 22 secure lockers (96” high x 36” wide x 48” deep), each with space for two bikes, helmets, and gear. We have more than 45 lockable wall hooks (see photo). The facilities are just steps from the entrance; there’s a trough built into the steps to safely wheel your bike into storage. Or, use the elevator. Tenants pay a $20 upcharge for a locker and $10 for an assigned secure hook with cable. (See photo of the Harbach bike storage lockers; one locker already has a classic Raleigh on the back wall.)

In addition to security cameras in each bike area at Harbach Lofts, we’ve added custom benches (see photo of bench and workstand), restrooms, bike wash stations and bike repair stands and tools for maintaining bikes. The bike facilities also include framed central Iowa trail maps and areas to post and display information on upcoming bike events.

The vintage bicycles hanging in our lobby are a good indication of the bicycle-friendly focus we embrace at Harbach Lofts.

Our residents tell us they haven't seen anything in Des Moines like our bike amenities. As the owner, we know it's our attention to detail that attracts and retains great people.