CEDAR RAPIDS — Four post-flood, public-sector construction projects will do their part to change the face of the city when completed this summer: the hotel and convention complex project, the new downtown library, the new central fire station and the new riverfront amphitheater. This week, though, City Hall is pushing ahead on four private-sector projects [...]

A University of Iowa appeal for federal dollars to help fund $30 million in flood mitigation to underground campus utility tunnels has been denied. UI officials had appealed the decision of the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding the tunnel mitigation funding, and that appeal was recently denied by FEMA’s regional office in Kansas City, university [...]

The firing of Rutgers University basketball coach Mike Rice last week drew national attention to leadership issues in college athletics, an issue the Big Ten Conference already has been discussing, University of Iowa President Sally Mason said. The situation at Rutgers — Rice was fired after video surfaced publicly of him shoving and throwing basketballs [...]

Editor’s note: One in a series of stories on flood recovery, a topic that The Gazette considers a content priority for 2013. CEDAR RAPIDS — Two flood-hit commercial neighborhoods on the mend, New Bohemia and the emerging Kingston Village, have more investment on the way. The City Council on Tuesday selected a development proposal for [...]

By J.T. Rushing, correspondent Editor’s note: One in a series of stories on flood protection, a topic that The Gazette considers a content priority for 2013. Five years after record floods devastated Cedar Rapids, funding for flood-prevention plans on the east side of the Cedar River are facing a cloudy future as a result of [...]

University of Iowa officials are giving the federal government a few more months to provide answers to questions regarding funding for the flood-damaged Museum of Art before moving on with other options for the facility, UI President Sally Mason said Wednesday. The idea of litigation against the Federal Emergency Management Agency over the art museum [...]

  IOWA CITY — Site work began last month at the new Hancher Auditorium location, a welcome sign that the major flood-recovery project is moving forward four and a half years after the disaster, one University of Iowa official said. Fencing has gone up around the future site of the new Hancher Auditorium, and the [...]

State regents on Wednesday approved the plans and budgets for the demolition of two flood-damaged facilities at the University of Iowa. UI officials said work will begin in the coming months on demolition of the Hancher-Voxman-Clapp complex and portions of the School of Art building. Both facilities have been vacant since the 2008 flood. Substantial [...]

About $8 million has been obligated from the federal government to the University of Iowa for the construction of a removable flood wall around the Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories, officials announced Tuesday. It is the official obligation of money UI officials expected to receive for the project, university spokesman Tom Moore said. The funding is [...]

After the flood of water came the flood of red tape. “I think the documentation on this project would be multiple feet high in terms of sheets of paper,” said Jim Hoffman of Cedar Rapids. He’s the chairman of the city-appointed stakeholder committee tasked with making “hundreds” of critical decisions for the reopening of the [...]