Val Air Ballroom Reopens For Music After $15M Restoration

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — The day before the Val Air Ballroom reopened its doors for live music, Sam Summers sat inside the historic venue and opened a letter addressed to him. Inside was a handwritten note, thanking the Central Iowa promoter for renovating the 85-year-old building and preserving precious memories for so many Iowans that attended concerts there over the years.

The letter is among the many thank-you notes Summers has received over the course of the 14-month reconstruction, teed up by an open house that drew 4,400 people through the ballroom doors with some folks driving vintage cars that lined the driveway to the venue.

Jam band favorite Greensky Bluegrass rechristened the venue on Leap Day, Feb. 29, before a crowd of 1,500. The next day, country/roots artist Sierra Ferrell drew a slightly bigger audience of 1,800.

“When I see peoples’ reaction to the reopening, I don’t think it would’ve been torn down, but you never know,” Summers said. “I get stopped in my yard mowing the lawn by people going by whose grandparents were married there or went to a dance. It’s all generations, and that’s what we saw at the open house.”

Summers didn’t want to take the chance of having the iconic facility demolished after booking dozens of shows at the Val Air over his 20 years as a promoter. Two years ago, he purchased the ballroom for about $2 million with the intent to upgrade a building that opened in 1939 as an open-air venue on the site of the old Wilson Rubber Co., a World War I era tire plant.

All told, the restoration cost $15 million, which includes the money Summers spent to buy the ballroom.

“It’s a ‘live’ room, the kind of room I like, big and open,” said Dave Bruzza, guitarist and founding member of Greensky Bluegrass. “We’ve played the Crystal Ballroom in Portland (Oregon) and Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. They all have a lot of history, and playing in those settings is special to a musician, because it’s fun to think about all the shows that have gone on in those rooms.”

Summers completed the project when others couldn’t get it done, with the help of state and federal grants and historic tax credits tied to inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. It took a lot of work just to wade through that tedious process, but it was worth it, considering the alternative, according to Summers.

“It’s the only way a project like this works,” he said. “Over the years, others couldn’t make it work financially to pay to get everything fixed. It always ended the same way. They start to get bids and it gets overwhelming. We bit the bullet. The city of West Des Moines helped us with that too by forming a TIF district.”

The tax-increment financing model, designed to use sales tax revenue generated by new development to help pay construction debt, is starting to take shape around the Val Air, which sits on the edge of a residential neighborhood.

One block away, Either/Or Eatery & Patio, a new restaurant serving everything from bologna sandwiches to caviar, opened in an old auto repair shop in September, about two years after a bike shop was expanded and rebranded across the street from the ballroom. The city is building bike trails, and with the support of Erik’s Bike, Board and Ski, Summers said it’s a good fit with touring artists and their crews grabbing some exercise during their stops in town.

In addition, improvements were made to the nearby Fareway grocery, Casey’s convenience store and a Wendy’s fast-food outlet, with the city widening Grand Avenue, the main street leading to the Val Air.

Inside the ballroom, the color scheme is different shades of green with touches of pink. As construction crews stripped the original finishes from the bones of the Val Air, they discovered “sea foam-ish” tones. A fan of the color, Summers stuck with that palette to refresh what he described as a “shipping container look” in the old setup.
The first four months of construction focused on repairing the foundation, which under its original layout for the tire factory was never sufficient to support a concert venue, Summers said.

The original roof, a retrofit completed in the 1950s, about 15 years after the ballroom opened, was made of tin with a thin layer of insulation, which deteriorated over time. It did little to keep booming bass lines from escaping the ballroom, which resulted in complaints from neighborhood residents late into the night.

Building a new roof, designed by a sound mitigation expert, added layers of dense rock, supported by new structural steel, to minimize sound bleed and provide quality acoustics. The new roof achieved the project team’s goal for keeping most of the sound within the four walls of the building after Summers walked the neighborhood to test the decibel levels.

The stage was upgraded with a higher, 4-foot rise to provide clear views of performers from the back of the general admission room. New gridding accommodates supplemental lights and production equipment, which Greensky Bluegrass brought with them as part of their 2024 tour.

A small, elevated space at about the midway point of the refinished ballroom floor, set against the wall to the right of the stage, is marketed as a VIP ticket package. Decades ago, it was the original stage before the bigger structure was built. VIP ticket holders get access to the old green room in the basement, equipped with lounge seating and a television to view the show live streamed.

The new HVAC system, made up of two massive units weighing 250 tons, replaces the antiquated equipment that couldn’t keep the ballroom cool during the sweltering dog days of summer. Now, the venue can be filled to its capacity with the ability to control the flow of air conditioning into the building.

The original bathrooms were inadequate. The initial layout had men and women both heading to the same destination before splitting into separate spaces, which led to bottlenecks.

The restoration created a new men’s restroom on the opposite side of the ballroom. The women’s restroom remained intact and was expanded. The back wall leading into the ladies’ room will soon be converted into a vanity with a pink countertop, a full-length mirror and globe lighting, evoking a touch of Hollywood yesteryear.

“We’ll do private events,” Summers said. “I envision (the vanity) being a good photo spot for weddings. We’ve had a lot of that business come back that left over the years because it was in disarray, plus there were other good venues in Des Moines to host events. Now, we’re back up to that level.”

The ballroom bars were remodeled with new ice machines and walk-in coolers. Employees now have their own private bathrooms behind the bars and no longer fight through the crowds to use the public facilities.

There seem to be enough points of sale to sell adult beverages; during the Greensky show, the lines were minimal at the front and rear bars that take cash along with credit cards.
Val Air’s total capacity bumps up to 2,500 by removing all the tables and chairs that make up the first come, first serve seated portion of the ballroom. For Greensky, the room didn’t feel terribly crowded. There was enough space for two young girls to lie down on the carpeted portion between the sit-down area and the main floor to play video games on their mobile devices.

The curvy brick walls near the ballroom entrance, a classic design feature, remain intact as part of retaining the historic look. In other cases, Summers wanted to move some things around to create uniformity, but he learned from following the federal landmark program that they don’t always like symmetry in design.

“It doesn’t translate; they want it more like it was,” he said.

The old multi-colored neon “Val Air Ballroom” and “Dancing” signs attached to the exterior façade and a carport-like structure in front of the building, another signature design element, were restored and filled with LED lighting. It’s similar in price to neon, but less expensive to maintain in the long run, Summers said.

All back-of-house spaces were upgraded as well, including wireless connectivity, new production and green rooms, and increased parking space outside the building for tour buses.

The Greensky Bluegrass booking was on point, considering the band’s song, “Leap Year,” released a decade ago, written by their mandolinist Paul Hoffman, and which the Kalamazoo, Michigan, outfit performed in its entirety and in bits and pieces during the show. Given the song was released in 2014, this was the first time the band has played on Leap Day, Bruzzo said.

As part of the festivities, the group distributed plastic throwback-style hotel keychains to the 1,500 attendees as a custom giveaway, branded on one side for the Leap Year song lyric “How Can One More Day Make a Year So Long.” The other side was marked with the number 366, marking the extra day of the year. Hoffman came up with the keychain idea, Bruzzo said.

“It was fun to piece together something a little special for everybody,” he said. “We’re all like-minded in the fan experience. The (jamgrass) community has always supported us. We don’t sell records; we sell tickets and write great songs, and it comes through in our connection with the audience.”

Apart from the initial shows, Val Air bookings have come fast and furious. As of early March, Summers, whose company is First Fleet Concerts, has had about 30 concerts on sale through mid-September. It’s an eclectic mix, extending from Blackberry Smoke, Chappell Roan and Wheeler Walker to Jesse Murph, Mars Volta and Bad Religion with Social Distortion.

First Fleet has partnerships at several venues across Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota, but the Val Air Ballroom is the only facility wholly owned by Summers.

“Everything is selling really well, which is nice,” he said. “As long as I’ve been doing shows here, it was a band-aid approach. The thing I’m most excited about are the things people should expect, like air conditioning, nice bathrooms, accessibility and a good stage where you can see the show. It’s been fun; I’ve never been a part of anything like this before.