Ask anyone tracking Urbandale's growth this year and they'll point you to Douglas Avenue. There's a master plan, a branding contract, and a zoning study all aimed at turning the corridor between Merle Hay Road and 75th Street into something the city keeps calling a downtown. It's the story getting written about. It is not, so far, the story residents are living.
That's three miles west, in a building most people drove past for years without a second look. The Recreation Station opened in May with a 17,000-square-foot gym and, as of this writing, it's the only place in town where the "new Urbandale" everyone talks about actually has a door you can walk through.
The Corridor Everyone's Talking About Is Still On Paper
Urbandale's downtown master plan was approved by the city council back in December 2023, developed with the consulting firm Bolten and Menk. That's the easy part of any redevelopment timeline. The harder part is everything after the vote, and that's where the Douglas Avenue Corridor still sits.
In February, the city council signed off on a branding contract with the Cedar Rapids firm De Novo Marketing to figure out what to even call the district. A separate zoning consultant, Wright Smith Cozino, came on board around the same time to work out what kind of development the current rules will actually allow. Right now the corridor is zoned "neighborhood commercial," which permits only low-density commercial uses along Douglas Avenue. Economic development director Aaron DeJong put it plainly when he told the Business Record the master plan calls for something bigger than what the zoning currently supports.
None of that is a criticism of the plan. Branding studies and zoning rewrites are how a corridor gets built correctly instead of quickly. But if you've been waiting for downtown Urbandale to feel different, the honest answer as of this summer is: not yet. The contracts are the news. The buildings aren't.
Three Miles West, The Gym Already Has A Court You Can Book Tonight
Recreation Station skipped the branding phase entirely. It opened as a two-court gym with a wellness area, and residents can already rent court time for basketball, indoor soccer, and general practice space for teams and leagues. Recreation Superintendent Mollie Wilhite described the building's purpose in a way that's worth sitting with: a 17,000-square-foot gym built to reflect how the city thinks about growth, aimed at supporting both families and workforce attraction.
That's the tell. The city is talking about Recreation Station in the same language it uses for the Douglas Avenue Corridor: investment, attraction, positioning. But the actual use, right now, in August, is a lot less abstract. It's a place to reserve a court for your kid's Tuesday practice or a Thursday pickup soccer run. The economic development pitch and the resident's actual experience of the building are two different documents, and only one of them requires you to show up in person.
Worth remembering while you're there: Urbandale has more than 50 miles of paved trails for anyone who'd rather take the workout outside once the evenings cool off in September.
What's Actually Filling August Calendars
Set the master plan aside and the texture of a normal week in Urbandale looks like this right now:
- Free concerts continue through the summer as part of the city's Summer Concert Series, with shows staged at parks including Charles Gabus Memorial Tree Park and Gardens.
- Art on the Trail keeps running at Lakeview Park, where locals paint two-foot-square boards that get displayed around the pond along one of the city's most-used walking and biking loops.
- Walker Johnson Park stays busy with tennis and pickleball courts, four separate kids' play areas, and a skatepark with two escalated quarter pipes, alongside an observation deck and a storywalk built around a small pond.
- Living History Farms keeps its seasonal programming going across the 500-acre outdoor museum, which spans three working farms and the 1876 town of Walnut Hill, complete with a blacksmith and a broommaker.
None of that required a branding consultant. It required someone showing up to mow, mulch, and staff a folding table.
The Food Scene Filling In Around The Edges
Two spots worth knowing if you haven't already found them. Coaches Kolaches, started by former Iowa State football player Brent Curvey, sells Texas-style kolaches in flavors running from strawberry and cream cheese to smoked brisket and jalapeño sausage. And if you're the type who'd rather combine dinner with a bucket of balls, Range Restaurant & Cocktail Bar pairs six PGA-endorsed golf simulators with a menu that includes bison steak tacos and lobster rolls.
Neither of these opened because of a corridor rebrand. They opened because Urbandale had customers ready for them.
Reading The Timeline Correctly
Line up the last three years and the contrast gets sharper:
- December 2023 — City council approves the downtown master plan for the Douglas Avenue Corridor.
- February 2026 — Council awards a branding contract to De Novo Marketing and a zoning contract to Wright Smith Cozino, more than two years after the plan's approval, to start figuring out what the corridor will actually be called and what it will legally allow.
- May 2026 — Recreation Station opens with a two-court gym and immediate court rentals, no branding study required.
- July 2026 — Urbandale Lions Park hosts live music from Jordan Beem and Back To Vinyl for the country's 250th Independence Day, and Walker-Johnston Park runs its 60th Annual Fourth of July Fun Run, a tradition six decades older than any corridor plan.
The corridor is still two contracts away from a shovel. The rest of the city just kept doing what it's done for sixty years and counting.
What This Means If You Live Here
If you've been holding off on visiting downtown Urbandale waiting for it to look like the renderings, you're going to be waiting a while longer. Zoning changes and branding rollouts move on a different clock than a gym opening its doors. But if you want to feel Urbandale's growth in a way you can actually book a court for, Recreation Station is open now, and it's not pretending to be anything more than what it is.
Mark your calendar too for Sample Urbandale on September 17, the Chamber's annual event built to showcase local businesses. It's the kind of evening where you'll probably run into the Coaches Kolaches table and the Recreation Station booth in the same room, which is a decent snapshot of where this city's actual momentum is sitting this year.
Urbandale's downtown will get its turn. For now, the corridor is a plan and the gym is a place. If you live here, you already know which one you can use tonight.
Curious what else is changing block by block around town? Tim Lucken REAL keeps a close eye on Urbandale and the rest of the Des Moines metro, and we're always glad to talk shop about the neighborhood over coffee, no appointment necessary.
