Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The sprawl monster has 4,500 more acres of Iowa to feast on. A few months ago, Waukee added two huge tracts of land* and one smaller one in annexation procedures. The vast majority is undeveloped but that will change. A whole bunch of Dallas County rural street names are likely to change eventually.

The annexations push Waukee’s already-janky city limits farther west and south, without any infill in that Sugar Creek area, and run right up to an extension of Adel from 2009 along US 6. Adel has feared Waukee chewing its way west, and now that has become a reality. The two cities now meet across from each other on US 6 (where the Hickman Road name is likely to be extended) just east of the eastern junction with R16. The southeast corner of that intersection, for now, is a house in daddy-won’t-sell-the-farm mode.

The southwest annexation, land owned by Ruan Inc., pushes Waukee into the Van Meter school district in a huge way. A little bit of the city southwest of the I-80/R22 interchange was already there (the Kum & Go), but this goes to and south of the Raccoon River. It’s worth nothing that neither Waukee nor West Des Moines has made a move to swallow up unincorporated Booneville and nearby existing subdivisions … yet.

The western annexation preceded Apple’s announcement last week of a huge data center at US 6 and S Avenue — closer to downtown Adel than the Dallas/Polk county line (142nd Street). It also happens to be the last intersection heading west that’s still in the Waukee school district.

Besides the data center itself, Apple is going to be pouring money into “quality of life amenities” in Waukee, the Register reports. My thought about that is, while that’s very generous of Apple, I can’t help but think about the hundreds of other communities in Iowa — say, Waverly, Carroll, Keokuk, Fort Madison, Spencer, Oskaloosa, or Boone, all of which Waukee zoomed past in population between 2005 and 2016 — that don’t have a new house going up every day** and could derive greater benefit from outside help.

*Obligatory
**Figuratively. I think.

The closure of Ryan’s Steakhouse on Collins Road in Cedar Rapids in June was so abrupt that the employees weren’t notified. I was reminded that it was closed when I drove past it this week. And then it hit me: Every buffet restaurant my family frequented is gone.

• Old Country Buffet in Waterloo, which wasn’t around all that long, closed Feb. 9, 2006.
• Bonanza in Marshalltown closed in 2007. This was a favorite place to go after ISU football games, but this happened not too long before 1 PM kickoffs went extinct, so its effect wasn’t as noticeable.
• Bishop’s Buffet in Waterloo — the original of what became a chain — abruptly closed in 2007, reopened in 2009, and abruptly closed again in 2011, apparently for good.
• Bonanza in Cedar Falls closed in 2010, replaced by a Buffalo Wild Wings, and the Waterloo location followed in fall 2012, with demolition following soon after.
• Ryan’s in Clive and Old Country Buffet in Des Moines both closed abruptly — there’s that word again — on March 6, 2016. The parent company of both filed for bankruptcy.
• Then, finally, Ryan’s in Cedar Rapids, in June.

Does this mean something, big-picture-wise? I’m not sure. All of the above involve only three corporate parents, and in the case of the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Bonanzas the owners were looking to get out. I will miss the option of a buffet for special occasions, but Texas Roadhouse is a fine substitution.

As you may be aware, there’s a solar eclipse across the country today. Iowa is only going to get a partial experience of it, though. A little sliver of the very southwest corner is supposed to be in the “path of totality”, but if the map overestimates the shadow by half a mile on either side, that won’t happen. Fremont County has made preparations, although Waubonsie State Park itself isn’t in the path.

Cosmic irony being what it is, most of Iowa will be under overcast if not rainy skies, because that’s what happens in an abnormally dry month that absolutely needed one sunny day. (OK, three sunny days, since my two at the state fair also got dripped on.)

UPDATE: Totally a bust in most of the state. The Register, however, went with those Fremont County eclipse-seekers and school kids to the VERY southwest corner of the state to watch the 30 seconds of totality on the fringe.

(Totality on the Fringe would be a good name for a rock band.)