Gov. Kim Reynolds arrived in Sioux City on Tuesday morning to celebrate the opening of a $22 million multi-family housing development in the community.
“What’s great is you can see this complex from the air and it makes a big statement when you’re flying in,” Reynolds said.
The District 42 complex includes 215 units priced from $755 a month for studio apartments up to $1,500 a month for three-bedroom townhomes. Reynolds said this was the largest multi-residential project in Sioux City’s history.
The two-phase project is being completed by Eagle Construction of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Eagle CEO Steve Boote is an Orange City native who has spent the last few years building new apartments in rural Iowa after seeing success in other parts of the Midwest.
“She’s the reason we are back in Iowa,” Boote said of Reynolds. “We were in Okoboji maybe about five years ago and I started telling her my dream about developing workforce housing and we’ve been communicating ever since.”
Reynolds thanked Boote, his team, and local and state officials for their roles in the construction of District 42, which is named after the line of longitude where the complex is located.
“The simple fact is this, that projects on this scale and of this quality simply don’t start much less turn out so beautifully without everyone pulling together,” Reynolds said. “The competition for this type of development is fierce and I couldn’t be more pleased that Eagle Construction chose to undertake this here in Iowa.”
Boote has also been a strong supporter of Reynolds. He donated $10,000 to her campaign via personal check last year and another $10,000 in 2019 through Talon LLC—a subsidiary of Eagle Construction—according to state campaign disclosure records. He contributed an earlier $7,500 during the 2018 campaign cycle.
Additionally, it appears the plane Reynolds flew in on was registered to Sky Miles LLC of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which shares the same business address as Eagle Construction and Talon LLC. Only two flights arrived in Sioux City from Des Moines on Tuesday; the Sky Miles flight and another flight that arrived two hours after the ribbon-cutting ceremony began.
The Sky Miles flight departed the Sioux Falls Regional Airport at 8 a.m. and was at the Des Moines International Airport before 9 a.m. From there, the plane traveled to Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City arriving at 10:51 a.m., half an hour before the ceremony. The plane left Sioux City around 3 p.m. to fly back to Des Moines and was back in Sioux Falls just before 5 p.m.
by Ty Rushing
08/04/21