Star Communities: Newton, Iowa - Rural Resurrection

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Star Communities are those communities that have shined above the rest. They may have overcome immense tragedy, or they have simply excelled beyond expectations for a town of their size. These are example communities that are role models for those who strive to be better. The community of Newton, Iowa is the first to receive this designation.

Thinking back to my childhood, I remember the washer/dryer set that my parents had. It was the “puke green” color that was popular in the 1970s that thankfully fell out of favor in the ’80s. But what I also remember is that the appliances were made by Maytag, a popular appliance manufacturer from my home state of Iowa. The washer and dryer was a durable, well-running set that lasted until the mid-1990s. Their long-term reliability was one reason why my father purchased yet another set of Maytags down the road.

Newton – Maytag’s Company Town

Maytag is a globally known brand name of appliances that for a long time was headquartered in Newton, Iowa. Maytag started building washing machines there in 1893. As the company grew, Newton grew as well. It was part of Newton’s identity. Essentially, the city of Newton could’ve been considered as the definition of a “company town”. Residents were proud of that fact, boldly claiming that the community was the “Washing Machine Capital of the World.”

However, that marriage dissolved abruptly in 2006. Rival manufacturer Whirlpool bought out the financially struggling Maytag in April of that year. By that May, Whirlpool announced that they would be closing down the Maytag headquarters and manufacturing plant based in Newton.

This was a big blow to Newton considering the closure resulted in the layoff of 2,000 workers out of a town of just over 15,000. That’s a dagger to the heart of many communities. It’s nearly impossible to lose a single business of that size and move on as nothing happened. It is exponentially harder to do so in a community of only 15,000.

Not Giving Up

But this wasn’t the case for Newton. Immediately after the announcement, the Mayor formed the Newton Transformation Council (NTC). Business and community leaders, as well as other vested persons from not just Newton, but across the state, agreed to join the council. Through the use of grant funds from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Regional Innovation Grants (RIG) program, the group developed a plan. This comprehensive recovery plan pushed for new business startups, expansions of existing businesses, and the attraction of new companies to Newton.

There wasn’t immediate success as the unemployment rate in Jasper County shot up to 9.6% in January 2008. Three years later it was still as high as 8.3%. Newton’s struggles even caught the eye of the CBS news show, 60 Minutes. In their piece, one of the journalists stated, “Since the recession, we’ve seen a lot of troubled towns in the country, but nothing that looks quite as broken as Newton.”

But Newton and the NTC continued on, pressing to make things better in Newton and Jasper County.

Winds of Change Blow Through Newton

In 2008 TPI Composites constructed a new 316,000 square foot facility in Newton after reaching an agreement with General Electric (GE) to construct blades for their wind turbines. It wasn’t cheap to lure them to Newton. In all, the city, county, and State of Iowa gave TPI Composites $8 million in loans, grants, and tax breaks. They are now trucking out 27 of the 187-foot blades a week. TPI has also expanded in Newton and is now considered Jasper County’s largest employer, providing over 1,000 jobs in Newton.

Photo credit: Anna Jiménez Calaf on Unsplash

Also coming to town in 2008 were Trinity Structural Towers (now Arcosa Wind Towers). Trinity renovated 300,000 square feet of the former Maytag Two manufacturing plant to construct the tubular base structures for wind towers.

After expansions since opening their doors in the community, TPI and Arcosa are providing nearly 1,250 jobs in Newton. Although the initial infusion of jobs has assisted in the recovery from the loss of Maytag, those two also represented a relatively young, yet rapidly growing wind energy industry. A town whose main workforce had been making appliances for over 100 years, was now making wind turbines that were becoming the new power source for those appliances, as well as the myriad of other electronics in an increasingly electricity-dependent world.

Additionally, Global Fiberglass is working towards starting operation in a 100,000 square foot portion of the former Maytag manufacturing plant. They plan to recycle fiberglass blades from decommissioned wind turbines across the Midwest. Once again the blossoming wind energy industry is smiling down on Newton, eventually bringing more jobs to the community.

Don’t Put Your Eggs into One Basket

The revitalization of Newton’s economic base hasn’t stopped at these businesses. A number of other companies have started up or moved to town in recent years including:

Iowa Speedway – A speedway hosting IndyCar, NASCAR, ARCA, and USAC (20 FT, 360 PT jobs)
Springboard Engineering (UL)
Walter G. Anderson / Graphic Packaging Inc – (154 jobs)
Aureon – (70 jobs)
Health Enterprises
REG Biodiesel – (30 jobs)
Advanced Wheel Sales
Hawkeye Stages

The hard work has started to pay dividends. Newton’s unemployment rate in November 2017 was 2.5%, under the unemployment rate for the state (2.9%) that November.

What’s better is that the town’s economic base has diversified. Their employment eggs were no longer mostly in one big basket. Newton now enjoys a variety of employers that provide a sense of sustainability. If another company in Newton is bought out and moves out of town, the impact on the community won’t be as severe.

“After we lost Maytag, that was one of our goals, to diversify our economic base,” states Frank Liebl, Executive Director of the Newton Development Corporation. “Since Maytag’s departure in 2007 we have attracted 16 new companies to Newton. Some of these companies employ just a handful of people and others from 100 to 300 with TPI being our largest employer with 1,000.”

Enter DMACC

In the fall of 2016 Reza Kargarzadeh, a Grinnell businessman, gifted former Maytag Corporate Campus to Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC). The addition of the former Maytag buildings added more than 480,000 square feet of building space to DMACC’s real estate portfolio.

DMACC used some of the space to expand its own campus next door and to provide additional academic programs. However, the overall plan was to lease out much of the remaining space to businesses with an eye toward partnering with the college. The close proximity is allowing the companies leasing the property to provide internships and other learning opportunities for students.

The former corporate campus has been renamed Legacy Plaza. Some of the eight buildings in the campus date back to the early 1900s, providing a timeless architecture backdrop to those interested in relocating or starting a new business in the area. The campus also sits just a couple of blocks from the square in downtown Newton, providing a number of amenities in a walkable distance.

Current tenants in Legacy Plaza include Compass Mortgage, DMACC Business Resources, Thombert, Aureon, Numbers and Letters, Gezellig Brewing Company, The Cellar Peanut Pub, CIRAS, Iowa Lean Consortium, Aerocare, Sequoia Fitness, and Edward Jones. Legacy Plaza continues to draw interest. Potentially aided by Iowa’s Reinvestment District Act, the community hopes to make Legacy Plaza fully mixed-use. If the application for the Reinvestment District is awarded, developers will commence the construction of 51 market-rate apartments, a 58-room hotel, a lobby and bar and a 500-seat event center.

Don’t Stop There

With the recent successes in their emergence from the post-Maytag doldrums, it would be easy to relax a little to enjoy the results of their hard work. However, the City and the economic development entities have not just sat on their haunches.

In Phoenix Investors LLC, Newton found someone to acquire the former “Maytag Two” Manufacturing building. In 2015 this investment company purchased the 1.8 million square-foot structure and made the space tenant-ready by investing in improvements. Now, twelve different companies occupy 75% this massive facility.

The community continues to better itself elsewhere too. Newton is home to over 90 art and sculpture installations. This art is the fruit of the Centre for Arts and Artists (CAA), a nonprofit organization that disperses art throughout the community of Newton. The CAA has been an asset to the arts economy in Iowa since 2007.

Rabbit Maytag Park Newton, Iowa by Xtianetas; Creative Commons

The community also offers a number of grants available to downtown businesses, downtown housing, and new construction housing. Much like many other rural communities, Newton has identified these three issues as areas of need. But rather than just fretting about these issues, they are working hard towards making things better.

For all of their efforts in response to the loss of Maytag, Newton was awarded the National Sustainable Community of the Year Award (Small City Category) by Siemens and the US Chamber of Commerce for its successful, proactive approach to recovery.

There’s More if You Look

If you desire to know more about Newton’s recovery, just Google it. There is a host of articles on the web about their turnaround story. A simple search provides a wealth of information about how it was done. Not just local news articles, but national media outlets have highlighted this success story.

The efforts of Newton’s residents make this community an ideal choice for Rural Resurrection’s first “Star Community”. Star Communities is a series of posts on this blog that highlight special communities that persevered through challenges, taken advantage of opportunities, or excelled through hard work and opportunistic leveraging of resources.