The fences have gone up around a group of Cedar Rapids office buildings that are scheduled for demolition later this year.

Bob James
Bob James
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The buildings, at the corner of 42nd Street and Edgewood Road N.E. in Cedar Rapids, were badly damaged by last summer's derecho and are going to be coming down. The process of removing the buildings, owned by Transamerica, has already begun outside the public eye.

Bob James
Bob James
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I spoke to construction workers at the site Thursday morning, who told me that there's much interior work to be done before the buildings themselves are demolished. They said they believed demolition could possibly happen by late summer and that the series of buildings will be taken down with heavy equipment, and will not be imploded.

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Originally built by Life Investors Insurance Company of America over a fourteen-year period that began in 1974, they began to bear the AEGON name in 1989. AEGON then purchased Transamerica in 1999. Tata Consultancy Services occupied the buildings prior to the derecho.

Bob James
Bob James
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The buildings to be demolished, and the area around them, encompasses about 35 acres of a 50 plus-acre site that went up for sale in March. Coldwell Banker Hedges Realty has the entire property listed for $20 million.

The upcoming demolition of the damaged buildings will definitely make this property very appealing to prospective buyers in one of the hottest commercial real estate areas in the city of Cedar Rapids. What would you like to see there?

*The photos below are from March when the property went on the sale block.

Former Transamerica Campus Buildings For Sale

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