Cuban restaurant opens in East Village

Ceviche Bar opened on Sept. 18 at 223 E. Walnut St. in Des Moines’ East Village. Tanya Suarez Tigner opened the authentic Cuban restaurant to share her family’s Cuban sandwich and ceviche recipes with the metro. Everything is homemade in house, including the meats and Cuban bread. Ceviche also sells a variety of cigars and Cuban cocktails. The restaurant seats about 30 people. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5-10 p.m.; and closed on Sunday. Call 770-9795 or find it on Facebook.

Updated design plans revealed for convention hotel
A digital rendering of the updated design for a Hilton convention center hotel planned for downtown Des Moines came out earlier this month and featured an L-shaped building with eight stories. The modern building design included 329 rooms, including a four-room presidential suite and smaller multi-room suites. The hotel is scheduled to open in March 2018 and will be attached to the Iowa Events Center. The $100 million project was presented to the Iowa Events Center Hotel Corp. board on Sept. 9, and while no formal action was taken at that time, Knapp Properties CEO Gerry Neugent voiced his approval for the design. The hotel would be connected to the downtown skywalk system and have about 120 parking spaces below the building.

Long-time Ankeny restaurant closed
Chips, the restaurant located at 2502 S.E. Tones Drive in Ankeny, closed on Sept. 4 after 21 years of business. Paul Trostel opened the restaurant in 1994 in partnership with The Denny Elwell Co., which owns the building. The Guzman Group had been operating Chips for about two years. Elwell is seeking a new tenant for the building, which is 7,500 square feet. Trostel, who died in 2011, also owned Trostel’s Greenbriar in Johnston and Trostel’s Dish in Clive.

Knapp Properties to build warehouse at Airport Commerce Park
Several developments are in the works for the previously quiet location of Airport Commerce Park, a business park located on the south side of the Des Moines International Airport. Knapp Properties broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot warehouse in August, and it is scheduled to be complete in December. The warehouse will be located at 3000 Gannett Ave. A hotel and an office expansion are also in the early stages at the park. A three-acre parcel south of Vatterott College at 7201 S.W. 22nd St. was purchased by a subsidiary of Patriot Hospitality, a hotel developer, though the brand of hotel it plans to build has not yet been announced. Another plot of almost three acres was acquired by a subsidiary of Eurofins Scientific, a food and pharmaceutical-testing company. The company is planning an expansion on the parcel adjacent to its facility at 2200 Rittenhouse St. There are about 112 acres still for sale in the Airport Commerce Park South, and about 55 in the Airport Commerce Park West.

Dunkin’ Donuts opens another Des Moines location
Another Dunkin’ Donuts has opened in the metro at 1220 E. 14th St., north of the Walgreens. The newly constructed shop has a drive-thru window and inside seating. This location is the fifth for franchisee Jeff Kelderman. His other Dunkin’ Donuts locations are 2610 E. University Ave., 1520 N. Ankeny Blvd. in Ankeny, Marshalltown and Ames. Dunkin’ Donuts is open 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

Bakken Pipeline project hires contractors
Dakota Access LLC, a unit of the Dallas-based company Energy Transfer Partners and the company in charge of planning the Bakken Pipeline project, announced two contractors that will be working on the pipeline. Michels Pipeline of Brownsville, Wisconsin, and Precision Pipeline LLC of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, will each construct a segment of the pipeline, which spans portions of North and South Dakota as well as Iowa. Dakota Access expects regulatory approvals of the project later this year, and it has a projected start date for construction in the first quarter of 2016, with the pipeline in service by the end of 2016. The pipeline project has an overall $3.78 billion investment, and it will create an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 jobs during construction, according to Dakota Access. CV