DES MOINES, Iowa — A downtown intersection will close again less than a year after the city finished major construction at the site.

In 2024, the intersection of Grand Avenue and 18th Street saw closures and prolonged detours as part of a city-wide effort to upgrade the sanitary sewer system. The project lasted for months, beginning in spring and finishing just in time for the school year.

Construction impacted more than just traffic; the vintage store Funky Finds rests at the corner of the intersection and experienced flooding during construction. The flooding filled the basement, resulting in a temporary closure and forcing the business to rent out other spaces.

“We have a basement that is about 4,000 square feet, and it was packed with things like antiques and clothing, you know, small goods on shelves. And it was just water. And that was horrible,” said Ray Fredregill, whose wife owns Funky Funds. “We became aware of it the first day it started and moved things back and dry things out. The second day, water kept coming. By the third day, the place was just in several inches of water.”

After the construction cleared up and a few uneventful months passed, the building owner and the Fredregills thought the flooding problem was solved. Then the return of the rainy season brought a return of the basement flooding.

“Sadly, the new design of 18th Street had moved the storm drain and lowered the curve, and it didn’t really take into account where the water is flowing, and this corner at 18th and Grand just became a pond,” said Fredregill.

“No building can withstand having a couple of inches of water up against it for very long. And so it started going under the fire doors and coming through the ceiling in one spot of our basement, and it’s just been an ongoing mess.”

The building owner went to the City of Des Moines about the issue, demanding a fix before further damage was done. The city placed sandbags and water breaks as temporary measures and began using specs from the 2024 project to fix the storm drains.

“In this case, since the sanitary sewer, the large sanitary sewer, came through and was installed, we have additional survey information now. We have records of where the utilities are and elevations. So this makes it easier on us to at least try and quickly do some improvements to mitigate the flooding and stormwater,” said Steven Naber, a City of Des Moines Engineer.

The city now has plans to move and expand the storm drains to better accommodate the high amounts of water brought to the intersection. The project is slated to begin next week on August 18.

“We think that we could do this work with only a lane closure on Grand Avenue, and there may need to be closures on 18th Street, but there are other side streets. We know this construction has been impactful and unfortunately, these businesses have been dealing with it for, well, a couple of years in this area,” said Naber. “But we think that they’ll welcome the stormwater flood mitigation improvements.”

City of Des Moines engineers estimate the construction will take three to four weeks to complete. With classes resuming at Central Campus on August 25, the city is keeping the intersection as open as possible.