Beaverdale is a charming neighborhood in Northwest Des Moines, known for its distinctive brick homes, often referred to as “Beaverdale Bricks.” This area, developed primarily between the 1920s and 1940s, features many tree-lined streets and a strong sense of community cohesion.
Beaverdale excels with good parks, an attractive 2-block urban commercial district at Beaverdale and Sheridan, lots of food & beverage amenities, decent retail amenities and relatively affordable housing stock. While there are lots of for sale options, rentals are pretty limited. Beaverdale also has very convenient access to Dwtn being just 10 mins away (by car) with ok bike and public transit access as well. For Beaverdale to become a premiere urban district it needs more people and more density. They can start with promoting 4-5 story mixed-use development along their commercial corridors and allowing duplexes and triplexes in their single family zoned districts. Schools are also limited and poorly rated.
Click here to view my Beaverdale Album on Flickr
URBAN STRENGTHS:
* Generally very good sidewalk and ADA infrastructure. Only a handful of streets without sidewalks and curb cuts.
* A couple dedicated bike lanes but no dedicated bike stations.
* Great access to dwtn being only a 10 min drive and 25 min bus ride.
* Excellent generational and economic diversity.
* Overall a very safe community with very little blight.
* Decent amount of affordable housing here even including a Coop.
* Good housing diversity even some smaller 1-bedroom cottages which sell between 85K-150K. 2-beds sell btwn 140K-350K, and 3 & 4 bedrooms sell btwn 150-475K.
* Pretty good park amenities including 3 medium sized parks and a pool but a couple other parks nearby.
* Excellent tree canopy.
* Attractive historic homes from the 1920s-1950 but not spectacular. Pretty nice historic commercial districts on the 2-block biz district on Beaver.
* Good food & beverage amenities concentrated at the commercial node at Beaverdale and Sheridan, but not much else culturally.
* Decent retail amenities including a hardware store, a meat market, a supermarket, a couple drug stores, several gift shop/boutiques/clothing stores, a florist, a bookstore, a post office, a couple banks, a major veterans hospital complex and several doctor’s offices, several dessert joints, a couple gyms, and about 5 churches.
URBAN WEAKNESSES:
* low density for an urban district.
* So so transit access.
* Racial diversity is pretty limited as 80% of the residents are white.
* Only a couple elementary schools but both aren’t rated very well.
* Rentals are pretty limited but very affordable.
* Decent amount of autocentric development on the northern half of Beaverdale and Douglas Ave.
* Good urban form along a couple blocks of Beaverdale but most of the neighborhood has semi-autocentric biz districts with some
Evaluating our Urban Communities [with a focus on America] 