Downtown, South Side apartment complex lead in police calls for service
Iowa City police visited a sprawling apartment complex off Highway 6 675 times in 2008, but this year, calls for service at the Dolphin Lake Point Enclave Apartments have drastically dropped off, authorities said.
While calls to downtown bars have stayed fairly constant, officers have made more trips to the South Side since the opening of new bars in mid-2008.
New management took over the Dolphin Lake Point Enclave Apartments, 2401 Highway 6 — a location Iowa City police Officer Brandon Faulkcon called “the most dangerous place in Iowa City” — in early 2009, and since then, calls to the apartments have drastically declined, Iowa City police Sgt. Troy Kelsay said.
“The new ownership has made a concerted effort to make lasting change to that complex,” Kelsay said. “Just short of bringing in a bulldozer and starting over.”
While the rectangular white buildings still look foreboding at night, unmistakable signs of activity can be seen during the day, and several buildings have new doors, sidewalks, and lawns.
The management is also attempting to change the image of its buildings and bring in different tenants. Rather than being only apartments, workers are creating condominiums and townhouses. A new clause in the contract now gives management the right to evict tenants convicted of certain crimes, Kelsay said, and private security guards monitor the area.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was initially a spike in calls for service because on-site management is very interested in having police out there,” Kelsay said, and the management has been “great to work with.”
Los Cocos Bar, 1921 Keokuk St., is a frequent destination for police. As two police cars drove past each other in parking lot the night of April 25, the drivers stopped to question each other about what they’d heard was happening at “Cocos.”
Iowa City police list 82 trips to the establishment, a former Pizza Hut building, in 2008, but it didn’t open until July 2008. Last weekend alone, police visited the bar seven times, though they made no arrests, police records show.
Similarly, Club Furia, 1550 First Ave., had 35 calls for service in 2008, though police didn’t conduct their first bar check there in October 2008.
Of the downtown bars, Brothers, 125 S. Dubuque St., attracted the most police attention with officers visiting the spot 274 times, though 90 of those visits were for routine bar checks.
Summit, 10 S. Clinton St., is second with 242 calls — though this includes calls for directly outside the bar as well — and Third Base, 113 E. College St., got officers’ attention 185 times last year.
While Dolphin Lake Enclave Apartments had the most calls in 2008 and the city’s South Side bars have received more policing, the downtown area collectively attracted the most police attention in 2008.
So far, it appears the same will hold true in 2009.
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