DES MOINES, Iowa — New developments in downtown Des Moines will transform the city’s future, according to the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

One of the new developments in the city is the Market District. The district sits between the Court Avenue District and the East Village.

According to the Market District website, it will stretch west from East Sixth Street to East Second Street, and south from East Vine Street to East MLK Jr. Parkway. The Market District is composed of 11 lots and three of them are sold. Ground broke on the project in June 2021, and it’ll take ten years to complete.

The Vice President of Downtown Development for the Greater Des Moines Partnership, Renae Mauk, said the development will energize the city.

This comes as downtown Des Moines is seeing a daytime population of 70,000 people and foot-traffic has steadily increased since the pandemic.

“[Market District developers are] working with kind of a lot of that vertical development and looking for the right opportunities and the right partners to go skyward now that they’ve done a lot of the groundwork,” she said.

The goal for the project is to add apartments, shops, and restaurants throughout the district.

Mauk also said other residential project like the construction of the 515 Tower and the transformation of the Financial Center are providing new future opportunities for the city.