The City of Waterloo’s Board of Adjustment has voted 4-0 to deny Hope City Church’s plan to purchase the former Wells Fargo Bank building downtown on West Fifth Street, according to the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. The board denied the request saying that it did not fit with the city’s ongoing Riverfront Renaissance plan. That plan states riverfront properties should be turned into multi-story, mixed use development, meaning space for businesses and also residential space. The price for the building has dropped from $900,000 to $475,000 within the last eight months. There have been no other offers on the site. Hope City Church says they have outgrown their location on High Street. They have looked at other locations such as the former Hy-Vee on Logan Avenue, the Creative Planning building downtown, the former CVS off Franklin Street and the former All In Grocers building but those sites were all deemed either too big or too small.
