The intersection of Fleur Drive (originally SW 21st Street) and Grand Avenue on the west side of downtown Des Moines had a history in the state highway system. Fleur was the main way for downtown traffic to get to the south side and airport. For 35 years, IA 123 ran south from Grand to Army Post Road (see Jason Hancock’s Highways of Des Moines page).
Now that Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway has taken the place as the primary connection, the city of Des Moines is moving forward with a project to reshape the intersection. It’s part of a larger sanitary/storm sewer separation project originally proposed at the end of 2020. Stories: Des Moines press release (with video), KCCI, Des Moines Register (via AOL).
For decades, this area has been where Grand Avenue changes from two-way to one-way traffic, with Locust Street handling eastbound. Grand and Locust will be converted to two-ways over to 15th Street, the west side of the Western Gateway Park. Fleur will flow directly into Locust with no connection to Grand. The space immediately east of Des Moines’ Central Campus school will be turned into green space.
In a related project, the westbound lanes of MLK Parkway on the south side of downtown, which were only about 20 years old, were torn up and repaved for sewer separation.
The Grand/Fleur intersection was certainly not “obscure”, as a city of Des Moines engineer Steven Naber says in the video, but it’s much less prominent today.