The head of the Iowa Lottery says his agency’s move into a new building is still scheduled to happen before the end of the year. Lottery CEO Terry Rich says the transition from the current building, located east of downtown Des Moines, to the new building in Clive is going smoothly.
“When we budgeted for the new building, we budgeted around $7 million and right now…we feel pretty comfortable that we’ll be on budget and on time,” Rich said. The Iowa Lottery is paying $5.35 million for the new building and spending extra on a generator and several security measures.
The current Iowa Lottery headquarters building has a heating and cooling system that was built in 1954 and needs to be replaced. The work would take several months, so it’s more cost effective for the Iowa Lottery to buy a more modern building. “Because the Iowa Lottery does almost $1 million a day, we realized that we couldn’t take three months off, move out, let it be done, and move back. That would cost a lot more than going to another building in a short amount of time,” Rich said.
The Des Moines School District is buying the current Iowa Lottery headquarters building for $1.6 million. After installing a new heating and cooling system, it will serve as the district’s administration building. Anyone who wins an Iowa Lottery prize of more than $250,000 must claim that prize in person at lottery headquarters.