English Bulldog Puppies for Sale in Cedar Rapids, IA

National farm retailer looks to construct new facility on city’s southwest side

Grace Nieland

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CEDAR RAPIDS — National retailer Tractor Supply Co. will relocate to its Cedar Rapids operations to a new southwest quadrant location by the end of the year.

The new store will be constructed at 4415 Williams Blvd. SW near Menards and UnityPoint Clinic Family Medicine-Westdale. The facility will replace the existing Tractor Supply Co. at 6622 Sixth St. SW.

A company spokesperson told The Gazette a soft opening is planned for early December at the new location with a grand opening celebration to follow in early 2026.

“The new store will provide about 15 new jobs to the area, with at least half of those being full time positions,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Anyone interested in applying for a position can visit www.TractorSupply.com/careers."

Tractor Supply Co. is a nationwide farm retailer that sells agricultural and livestock products, as well as home improvement and lawn care supplies. The new Cedar Rapids location also will include a garden center and pet wash.

Cedar Rapids City Council members this week unanimously approved a rezoning for the project, although the change was made on the condition the developer conduct a traffic study as part of the administrative site plan review process.

Laurie Dawley of Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, which is representing the project’s developer Atwater Group, told council members that the Tractor Supply store is expected to see its heaviest traffic in the evenings and weekends, thus minimizing impacts to the nearby UnityPoint clinic.

Further, Dawley said the store’s initial site plans were adjusted following conversations with the nearby property owners to relocate Tractor Supply’s outdoor storage away from the UnityPoint building for aesthetic purposes.

“We have been hearing (neighbors’) comments, and we have taken action,” Dawley said in a statement to City Council members ahead of the rezoning vote. “ … We are listening. We are trying to react and respond” as appropriate.

The Tractor Supply spokesperson said additional information about the new location and its full range of offerings will become available closer to the soft opening.

Comments: grace.nieland@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - Two Cedar Rapids landlords appeared in court for a contempt hearing on Monday.

Those landlords are Esaie and Brigitte Toingar.

Monday’s hearing was about a 4-unit building located at 1817 B Ave NE in Cedar Rapids.

It’s one of many properties owned by the Toingars that isn’t up to city code. It operates under 5 J Investments LLC, registered to the Toingars.

“I am dealing with tenants that never pay. Some of them one year and some a year and a half,” Brigitte Toingar said at the hearing.

In April 2024, city home inspectors found the building on B Ave Northeast wasn’t up to city code, and gave the Toingars until August to fix the issues.

The property was still in violation by the August deadline, so the court gave the Toingars a $3,000 fine and gave them another deadline to make the needed repairs by January 2025.

Now in April 2025, the building still isn’t up to code and the city is asking the Linn County courts to find the Toingars in contempt.

At Monday’s hearing Brigitte Toingar asked the judge for mercy.

“I have to do everything. My kids go work to pay for them (tenants) to remain in my places...places they damage,” Toingar said. “They keep taking advantage of me. I’m having a hard time with everything today,” she said.

Currently, the Toingars owe more than $20,000 in court fines for many properties they own in the city that aren’t up to code.

“The only issue I’m going to address is whether to continue this for two weeks. You can make whatever arguments you have, present any evidence you have, at that time,” Judge Jonathan Hammond of Linn County District 6 told Toingar.

But the Judge did grant the city’s motion for continuance to move the contempt hearing to April 28. The Toingars will also be in court that day for three other cases regarding two other properties that aren’t up to code.

When TV9 asked Brigitte Toingar for an interview, she didn’t respond and walked away.

Copyright 2025 KCRG. All rights reserved.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - Data centers are infamous for excessive water use - and with two new data centers on the way, many are concerned about water usage here in Cedar Rapids.

The city has recently announced plans for two new data centers on the southwest side of town.

One center is a $576 million facility from Google.

The other is a $750 million facility from QTS.

Data centers are known to use excessive amounts of water in order to cool computer servers and equipment.

City leaders tell TV9 they are confident the city’s water system can handle the added demand.

However, it seems that the city is hiding a key piece of information from the public - who exactly is using the city’s water.

This is about more than just the data centers.

This lack of information now raises serious concerns about the usage of Cedar Rapids’ natural resources.

It is well known that data centers use a lot of water.

However, it is not likely that the new data centers would use nearly as much water as the city’s current largest consumer.

The current largest consumer used more than 4 billion gallons in the last year. That’s nearly equivalent to nearly all the water in Lake MacBride. Who exactly is using all this water? It’s a secret.

One Cedar Rapids man is concerned with how much water the proposed data centers may use.

“We kayak and backpack and camp,” said Wally Taylor.

Getting out on the Cedar River is a big part of Taylor’s life, and making sure Iowa waterways are clean and plentiful is a fight he’s taken on as a member of the Iowa Sierra Club.

Cedar Rapids pulls its water from aquifers and wells along the Cedar River, and according to the Iowa Geological Survey, recent drought conditions have led to aquifers not recharging as quickly.

“If there’s a drought, or there is just way too much water withdrawal, you are impacting the river, and that increases pollution too, because there is not enough water to disperse the pollution,” Taylor said.

Water is a resource the city uses to attract new business, like the two proposed data centers set to be built in the Big Cedar Industrial area on the southwest side.

“It’s a new attraction to other business that wants to come here, said Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell. ”In addition to the water, the wastewater, and the power that we have here. A data center here attracts a different kind of business.”

“The wastewater is, as we understand it, relatively clean wastewater,” said Cedar Rapids Utilities Director Roy Hessmann.

There are no specific plans for the data centers at this point. Because of this, neither Cedar Rapids nor Google will tell anyone exactly how much water they plan to use.

Google operates another facility in Council Bluffs. The data center there uses about 2.7 million gallons of water each day, or 980 million gallons a year.

City staff expect the Cedar Rapids center to use less water due to improving technology.

The QTS data center would use even less water, due to different operations.

“It re-circulates water, so, from a water usage standpoint, for example, it’s significantly less,” said Mayor O’Donnell.

The city said its current biggest user pumps about 12.5 million gallons of water a day, about a quarter of the city’s capacity. That’s far more water than the Google data center would use.

TV9 attempted to get more information on the city’s largest consumer, but the city refused to identify the user, citing state law.

“Wonder, first of all, why they don’t want to give the information out and number,” said Taylor. “We want to check and see if there is a valid reason for not releasing certain parts of the information, at least.”

Cedar Rapids isn’t the only city hiding information from the public. Dubuque also gave TV9 a list of its biggest users, but refused to identify them, citing the same state law. Iowa City refused to tell TV9 anything, responding simply “No”.

All this means the public has no way to know who is consuming all this water.

“I think that it’s important for the public to get as good of a picture as possible of what water is being used and by whom,” said Taylor.

But The Iowa Public Information Board said the cities actually can release that information.

The state law allows cities to protect “private customer information” of city utilities. The Iowa Public Information Board said that gives cities “discretion” on what is released, but that does not bar them from making the information public.

Hessmann said the city is always looking at its ability to supply ample water to its customers. One of the ways it’s doing this is through a $348 million upgrade to the city’s nearly 50-year-old water treatment facility.

Hessmann said the upgrades will expand the city’s overall capacity when the project is completed in 2029. It’s a benefit Mayor O’Donnell said attracts businesses to Cedar Rapids.

“We have the resources and the space at a time when AI, and among other things, is increasing the need for data,” said O’Donnell.

For Taylor, the Cedar River is worth protecting. Any large diversion of its water could cause environmental problems in the future.

“We’re going to be seeing a lot of water withdrawn with the data centers that are being contemplated, and other industries,” said Taylor.

For now, it is unknown what the future holds.

But for people like Taylor, the future of the city’s water holds a lot of weight.

Copyright 2025 KCRG. All rights reserved.

54°Cedar Rapids, IA

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Hy-Vee is closing two major food production facilities in Central Iowa and ending centralized bakery operations in Cedar Rapids, a move that will impact nearly 500 workers across the state, according to company spokesperson Tina Potthoff. (File)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Hy-Vee is closing two major food production facilities in Central Iowa and ending centralized bakery operations in Cedar Rapids, a move that will affect nearly 500 workers across the state, according to company spokesperson Tina Potthoff.

In Cedar Rapids, about 60 employees at a regional bakery near the Eastern Iowa Airport were notified this week that the site will no longer be used to produce donuts and baked goods for distribution. Potthoff said roughly one-third of those affected are part-time workers. She confirmed that all employees at the Cedar Rapids facility are being offered comparable positions at nearby retail stores.

“The products have been made at the store, the employees will go back to the store,” Potthoff said. “Every single person is getting offered a job there. Now, whether or not they want to take that job and go back to the store, that is up to them.”

Potthoff said the Cedar Rapids facility itself will remain open and could be repurposed. “We are still keeping that facility with the hopes of repurposing it,” she said.

But some local residents say the transition has been more abrupt than the company has acknowledged. In an email to Iowa's News Now, Aisha Warren—whose husband and son have worked at the warehouse for over three years—said employees were “given one week’s notice” with “no prior warning” and “no severance packages.” She added, “My husband told me there were employees crying—just really upset. They had no idea this was coming.”

Potthoff said Hy-Vee began notifying affected employees and holding meetings the same day the changes were announced. “We are actually meeting with employees because this all happened [Thursday],” she said. “We are working with them.”

The Cedar Rapids closure did not trigger a federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, filing. But Hy-Vee did file WARN notices on April 24 for two larger closures in Central Iowa. The company is shutting down a 150,000-square-foot fresh commissary in Ankeny and a 48,000-square-foot “Short Cuts” facility in Chariton, where fruit and other pre-cut produce were processed.

Those two facilities—also opened in 2018—will cease operations entirely, affecting 332 employees in Ankeny and 129 in Chariton. Hy-Vee says all impacted workers are being offered alternative jobs at stores, although it’s unclear how many will accept.

The changes represent a reversal of Hy-Vee’s 2018 move to centralize food preparation in large-scale production hubs. At the time, the company moved tasks like making salads, pizzas, sandwiches, and baked goods out of individual stores.

“We took responsibilities away from the store, and we centralized those responsibilities,” Potthoff said. She noted that products labeled “Short Cuts”—such as diced watermelon found in Cedar Rapids Hy-Vee stores—were being cut and packaged in Chariton before being shipped across the region.

But over time, logistical delays began undermining product freshness.

“The quality was great, but the travel time from when it would go from the facility to a store shelf was a little bit longer than really what we wanted,” she said. “So essentially, what we're doing is we're reversing course from where we were a couple years ago.”

According to Potthoff, the closures are not a result of cost-cutting or economic challenges.

“This is strictly quality and freshness, and consumers are speaking,” she said. “When we started centralizing this, it's just not doing very well. So we're trying to go back to what we've heard people say: ‘We don’t like this.’”

She added: “We're pulling back the curtain a little bit and letting people know how the fresh food and the home meal replacements have been manufactured.”

Returning food preparation to stores will also allow for greater flexibility, Pothoff said. She explained that sandwiches produced in Ankeny were made without tomato, onions or lettuce to avoid sogginess in transit. With in-store preparation, those fresh ingredients can now be included again.

Potthoff said that Hy-Vee intends to retain the affected facilities and repurpose them in the future. “We acquired 22 stores and we also just built a big distribution center in Cumming, Iowa,” she said. “So certainly there’s a need for the space.”

The company’s WARN notices for the Ankeny and Chariton closures are expected to become public in the coming days. Hy-Vee, based in West Des Moines, is the largest employer in the Des Moines metro.