“Moving dirt” dominates coffee shop talk this summer in the Iowa City corridor.
A flood of big equipment is churning earth not only for the massive data center projects near the Cedar Rapids airport, but also for various new residential subdivisions in North Liberty, Coralville and other spots.
Everywhere you look are giant scrapers, excavators, dump trucks, backhoes and bulldozers shaping the land for streets and building lots, plus digging basements and trenching utilities.
It’s what you see in an amazing high-growth area − heavy equipment operators piloting rigs which often push the million-dollar mark in value.
One such operator is Zac Stafford, who took me for a short ride recently while scraping topsoil at the new Forevergreen Heights subdivision. These north Coralville acres are expected to have nearly 1,000 dwelling units of all kinds at some point down the road.
A dusty job
Dust engulfed me as Stafford steered a huge John Deere tractor pulling a 23-cubic-yard scraper through a looping turn, then stopped to pick me up. Although he had just turned 22 and learned his skill on the job, he was entrusted by Concise Earth Construction of Iowa City with operating equipment worth about three times the value of my house.
“The boss loves green and won’t have anything else,” he said as I climbed the tall ladder to the John Deere cab. “He once bought a paving machine that wasn’t green and had them paint it green before they delivered it.”
Stafford was scraping and collecting black dirt at about 10 MPH in one spot and depositing it at strategic mound locations, stockpiling it to be replaced on residential lots later to ensure proper lawn growth. Three levers controlled the scraper – one raised and lowered the pan (floor of the scraper) while another dropped the blade and a third pushed the pile forward to eject the load.
It sounds simple, but it’s not.
Two electronic screens facing him were unused for this task, but are GPS and more sophisticated electronic equipment otherwise vital for accurately shaping the subdivision landscape.
Stafford is single, lives in Cedar Rapids, learned on the job and has been operating heavy equipment for about three years.
“I like the work,” he told me, as we bounced over the changing earth-scape, “and I like the time off in winter to travel.”
He too is amazed at the pace of development in the North Liberty and Coralville area. One of his Concise Earth fellow employees who digs basements, he said, is doing so at the rate of about two per day between jobs in Cedar Rapids and here.
From field to houses in Johnson County
Area residents have also noticed that for the first time this summer, rows of scrapers and other heavy equipment have lined up along Dubuque Street west of Liberty High School. They’re shaping some 160 acres for the new Sunset Prairie residential development by Watts Group of Coralville, its largest to date. Some 350 lots platted here are designed to eventually hold about 700 total living units.
It’s no surprise that former crop acres around here are blooming with streets and homes.
Both Coralville and North Liberty issued a record number of building permits for residential dwellings in 2025, their city officials told me.
North Liberty issued permits for 455 dwellings last year, Planning Director Ryan Rusnak said. The previous record of 395 housing permits was recorded in 2010.
In Coralville, Community Development Director Dave Johnson reports that “it appears 2025 was our biggest year since 2020” for issuing building permits for new residential housing − a total of 549 dwelling units. He adds that at this time, the Forevergreen Heights development has already completed 16 townhome units, 44 duplex units and 164 single-family detached units.
Johnson County’s population growth was the spark
It’s clear North Liberty’s growth in all areas has been climbing rapidly, with apartment and condominium units leading the pace. Rusnak said North Liberty’s population was estimated to be approaching 24,000 in March of this year, about 3,400 more than its official 2020 census.
“We’d love to see everyone live on a half acre and have a nice home,” he said, “but the trend today is for affordable, multi-family housing. Right now, we’ve got about seven subdivisions somewhere in the planning/construction review process.”
Rusnak said the city’s goal is to balance construction realities with a concern for design and environmental impact.
“We want developers to feel comfortable they’ll get a return on their development,” he said, “but we don’t want any negative impact on our people. We have a great development review team at the city which goes through everything with a fine-toothed comb.”
As an aside, he pointed out that the Urban Central District now taking shape along Highway 965 in North Liberty has brought in some 60,000 tons of fill so far. Lion Development Corporation has plans for about 450 residential apartments here, in addition to some 70,000 square feet of office and retail space.
Learning to run big construction rigs
Kirkwood Community College does not have heavy equipment operator’s classes, but its agricultural department has a well-established program using simulators for learning to operate big farm equipment, plus Kirkwood owns its own large farm for hands-on experience.
Although there are other training programs in the state, including those by construction companies, the only nationally certified heavy-equipment operation and maintenance program in Iowa is located at Northwest Iowa Community College in Sheldon. NCC officials say demand is high and the 11-month class is usually full. The program graduates about 24 students each year who usually earn a starting salary in the range of $60,000.
It’s easy to see why Stafford seems to have no problem maneuvering his scraping rig over the land being shaped for the Forevergreen Heights subdivision. Like many other operators, he might tell you he was born to do this.
“As a kid,” he said, “I always played with Tonka trucks in the sand pile.”
Richard Hakes is a longtime columnist for the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: The movers and shakers of Iowa City. What’s all that construction?
Reporting by Richard Hakes, Iowa City Press-Citizen / Iowa City Press-Citizen
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By Richard Hakes, Iowa City Press-Citizen | USA TODAY Network
