Consultants and Invest DSM staff briefed the Des Moines City Council during a Jan. 13 work session on plans to expand Invest DSM’s special investment districts into two additional neighborhoods and on outreach steps ahead of public open houses.

Charles, the project consultant, said the expansion would grow Invest DSM’s footprint from four concentrated geographic areas to six and pointed to metrics the team considers central to the proposal. “A buck in is generating 4.37 out,” he said, describing what he called the program’s leverage ratio. He said Invest DSM’s roughly $14,000,000 in investment has been matched by about $62.5 million, producing “almost $80,000,000 of upgrades” across more than 1,300 projects.

The presentation named Union Park North and North Grand/Woodland Heights as the two neighborhoods planned for the next phase of Invest DSM activity and said draft plans will be available and presented at public open houses scheduled for Feb. 10–12. Charles said the planning process has been guided by resident input, steering‑committee direction, surveys and open houses and that staff and the Invest DSM board will continue to iterate drafts over the coming weeks.

Some councilmembers raised equity and boundary questions. Councilman Gatto said, “the folks that I represent get 0 benefit from this program through redistricting,” and warned that he may withdraw support if the city does not change the allocation before the budget cycle: “Or else, you're gonna lose my support on this program.” Charles responded that organizations expanding from four to six districts sometimes adjust the original four temporarily and said the team expected additional geographic consideration in future phases.

Council inquiries included requests for data on housing-unit configurations (bedrooms and bathroom counts) citywide; staff said they will provide the raw data and analysis requested. The consultant also noted a dominant house type in the two target neighborhoods: “greater than 75% of the stocks in these neighborhoods … are 1 bathroom homes,” and he flagged that as a planning and intervention challenge.

No formal vote or ordinance was taken during the work session. The council and staff set a schedule to return with draft plans and to conduct the announced open houses.

The council reconvened later the same day for its regular meeting.