Mixed-Use and Infill Development

Why infill is different

Existing infrastructure sounds like an advantage until you find a century-old storm sewer easement running diagonally under your proposed building.

Conveyance Law represents developers, lenders, and property owners on mixed-use and infill projects across Des Moines and Central Iowa. We focus on the legal mechanics that make these deals close: site assemblage, title cleanup, environmental due diligence, entitlements, public-private financing, and the structures that hold mixed-use projects together.

Site assemblage

Most infill projects require putting together two or more parcels and the value of any single parcel goes up the moment word gets out that someone is assembling. A single holdout can kill a project after most of the deals are signed.

We structure assemblages with the tools that solve the sequencing problem: option agreements rather than firm purchase contracts during assemblage, cross-conditioned closings that obligate every seller to close the same day, holdout-contingent walkaway rights, real confidentiality provisions, and assignment clauses that let the developer take title in the right vehicle for tax credit and financing purposes. Coordinating title and survey early prevents the assemblage description from being built out of inconsistent legal descriptions accumulated across decades of platting.

Title and environmental due diligence

Older parcels carry older problems. On a typical infill assemblage we routinely see gaps in the chain of title, defective conveyances from the mid-twentieth century, easements of record that nobody can locate on the ground, vacated alleys with disputed reversion rights, encroachments that have ripened into prescriptive claims, and deed restrictions that may or may not still be enforceable under the Iowa Marketable Record Title Act.

Curing these through quiet title actions, corrective deeds, easement releases, or scoped title insurance endorsements is often where infill deals are made or lost.

Environmental due diligence runs in parallel: Phase I in every transaction, Phase II when warranted, All Appropriate Inquiries documentation to preserve CERCLA defenses, and Iowa Land Recycling Program participation when the site qualifies for voluntary cleanup and brownfield credits.

Entitlements and form-based zoning

Des Moines and a growing number of Iowa cities have moved toward form-based and mixed-use zoning that rewards infill. The PlanDSM framework allows a wider range of uses by right and emphasizes building form over rigid use separation. That is an improvement, but it does not make the entitlement process simple.

Typical entitlement work on a mixed-use infill project includes pre-application meetings with city staff, PUD or development plan applications for projects needing flexibility, site plan review, historic preservation review when the site sits in a designated district, neighborhood and stakeholder engagement, and plat amendments or vacations to reconfigure the assemblage into the parcels the project actually needs. We work with planners, civil engineers, and architects through this process and draft the legal instruments (development agreements, covenants, easements, plat documents) that come out of it.

Public-private partnerships and layered capital

Infill projects often need public participation to pencil. The most common Iowa tools include Tax Increment Financing under Iowa Code §403, federal and Iowa state historic tax credits, low-income housing tax credits, brownfield credits, and urban revitalization tax exemptions under §404.

Stacking them requires careful attention to ordering rules, double-dip prohibitions, and the entity structures that allow each credit to flow correctly. We work alongside accountants and tax counsel on the structuring and document the resulting partnership and intercreditor arrangements.

Mixed-use structuring

A vertical mixed-use building is, legally, several different properties stacked on a single site. We draft and negotiate the structures that make multiple uses coexist: condominium regimes under the Iowa Horizontal Property Act (Iowa Code §499B) with declarations that distinguish residential, commercial, and parking units; vertical subdivisions creating separate fee parcels by floor or by use; reciprocal easement agreements for shared structural elements, MEP, parking, and access; and cost-sharing agreements that allocate maintenance, taxes, and insurance across the uses.

The structure decision affects financing (lenders prefer some structures over others), tax credits (some structures preserve credits better), and exit (a future sale of just the residential portion is far easier under some structures than others). It is much harder to fix later than to set up correctly the first time.