More development is on the on the way for Toledo’s southwest side. Superior Rentals, a Marshalltown-based housing developer, has purchased the vacant Deer Creek Medical Center property with plans to convert the existing clinic building into a 24-unit apartment complex.

According to Mike Judge, Superior Rentals president, interior demolition work is already underway at the 15,000 square foot facility with plans for apartments to be completed and ready to rent by this summer.

The apartment complex will offer 1 and 2 bedroom units with on-site laundry and a small number of loft units that will be built near the current entrance to the clinic.

Judge said the exterior of the building should remain relatively the same once the apartments are complete.

“It’s a beautiful building and I think it will be a good addition to the community,” Judge said.

Superior Rentals has been operating apartment complexes in the Tama/Toledo area for more than a decade, most recently purchasing and renovating the vacant Budget Inn property on the corner of Broadway and Business 30 in Toledo.

The Broadway project that was completed in late 2019 features 26 apartment units and, according to Judge, has been successful in staying fully occupied over the last year.

“We’re just really bullish with Tama and Toledo,” Judge said. “I think there’s a lot of runway out ahead of us with those two communities and a lot of growth potential.”

Much of the housing potential in the area appears to lie within the workforce at the Iowa Premium meatpacking plant. A significant number of workers there reportedly are still commuting in to work.

Regarding future development in the area, Judge said Superior Rentals will be considering construction on the bare ground to the west of the clinic facility that’s part of the Deer Creek lot. He indicated that duplexes might be his preferred solution for the area. Duplexes would provide more transitional housing for older residents moving into town from farm properties or those looking to downsize from a larger home.

Across the street, construction has been humming along for the past few months on the Birkwood Village senior living complex. Barring any setbacks, developer Mark Holtkamp and his team at Birkwood Village plan to have their facility ready to open in the second half of 2021.

Deer Creek Medical Center was built in 1998 through a collaborative effort between Grinnell Regional Medical Center (GRMC) and the University of Iowa Community Medical Services organization.

GRMC assumed full ownership of Deer Creek Medical Center in 2011 and through its time in Toledo offered patients family practice services as well as specialty services such as physical and occupational therapy, massage therapy, podiatry, lab and radiology services among others.

In 2016 GRMC was bought out by UnityPoint Health of Des Moines. By 2019, the Deer Creek facility was vacated as services were merged and shifted to the UnityPoint Tama/Toledo clinic facility on Broadway St. in Toledo near the aquatic center.

The closure, sale and repurposing of the clinic in Toledo is one in a series of similar transitions the area has seen in the past 5 to 10 years. The Iowa Juvenile Home property shuttered in 2014 remains under state ownership but the most recent development effort that ultimately stalled was for housing.

In 2015 the Otterbein Methodist church building on High Street in Toledo and the Pheasant Ridge Care Center north of Toledo were both closed, sold and now contain apartment housing as well.