If work on a 33-story downtown apartment building starts, as planned, in January, Des Moines will join the ranks of cities with the 100 tallest buildings in the nation under construction or recently completed.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat maintains a database of the 100 tallest buildings currently being built or newly ready for occupancy . At 360 feet tall, the 33-story 515 Walnut Tower, which received Des Moines City Council approval for construction incentives Monday night, would slot in at 81st on the list.
The new tower would fit between No. 80, the Thomas Jefferson Specialty Care Pavilion in Philadelphia, a 364-foot-tall, 19-story hospital, and the current No. 81, Ascent St. Petersburg, a 357-foot-tall, 34-story residential and hotel building in the Florida city by that name.
It would be the fourth-tallest building in Des Moines after the 630-foot 801 Grand, the 459-foot Ruan Center and the 365-foot Marriott Hotel.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat database shows most of the tallest buildings currently in the works are in the South, Northeast and West, concentrated in fast-growing cities like Miami, Austin and Seattle, as well as in the New York area. But several of Des Moines’ Midwestern neighbors are on the list. Here are the tallest buildings planned or newly opened in the Midwest and where they rank on the council’s top 100 list.