Iowa City's biggest renter?

by Marcus Schulz

The owners of Apartments Downtown Management Company were the highest taxpaying apartment owners in Iowa City in 2006.

According to the city assessor’s annual report, James A. Clark ranked third on Iowa City’s list of top taxpayers, after Mid-American Energy Company and ACT Inc. Clark owned property with an assessed value at $26.8 million in 2006, up from nearly $20 million in 1997, according to an Iowa City assessors report. The tax rate in Iowa City is about $36 per $1,000 of assessed value. Johnson County Treasurer Thomas Kriz said that Clark would be paying approximately $967,320 in taxes.

Clark’s business is listed as apartments. Created as Associated University Realty Inc. on August 29, 1972, Clark’s corporation has switched names several times. In 1987, the company adopted the name AUR Downtown Apartments. The company changed its official name to DTA Iowa City Inc. on August 1, 2003, and immediately switched again to Apts. Downtown Inc. on September 1, 2003.

Between 2003 and 2004, Apartments Downtown added several names that it could also use to do business. These include Apartments Near Campus, Iowa City Maintenance, AUR Downtown Apartments and Associated University Realty.

Harry Davis of the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office said that companies sometimes have multiple names when they participate in different types of business. He said that Clark’s company remains one legal entity.

Apartments Downtown manages properties owned by many different partnerships, most of which are listed under members of the Clark family, which includes James’ wife, Loretta, and three sons, Bryan, Joseph and Jeffrey. Partnerships are defined by Iowa Code as "an association of two or more persons to carry on as co-owners of a business for profit…” Registration with the state is not required for a partnership, and it may be as simple as an oral agreement between two people. Partnerships are created to conduct the business and affairs, or to act for, the co-owners of a certain property.

Iowa City Assessor Dennis Baldridge said that all of the property owners’ tax bills go to the same address at 414 E. Market St., which is also the location of Apartments Downtown. Doing business through multiple names does not affect the property taxes the company pays.

Along with Clark’s apartment companies, several of his projects are known to Iowa City residents. The new Writers Square at the corner of Linn and Market streets, home to TSpoons coffee house, RSVP card shop and many apartments, was completed in November. The Key West Condominiums that are occupied by Falbo Brothers Pizza, Sam’s Pizza and the Liquor House, was also recently built by Clark.