Joel Aschbrenner

jaschbrenn@dmreg.com

Local architect and real estate developer Kirk Blunck has died, a business partner confirmed on Monday.

Blunck, 62, died Sunday afternoon in the East Village, according to Stephen Knowles, a partner at Des Moines-based Knowles-Blunck Architecture.

A Des Moines police spokesman confirmed a body was found Sunday at 500 E. Locust St. but would not reveal the identity of the person Monday afternoon or provide a report from the incident.

"Contributing circumstances are still under investigation," Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek said.

An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday.

Blunck’s office is located at that address in a property known as the Teachout Building, one of the historic East Village buildings he helped renovate.

Knowles said the architecture firm will address projects and buildings Blunck was working on before his death.

“It’s a huge shock and a very sad loss for us,” he said.

Blunck specialized in renovating historic buildings and helped pioneer efforts to revitalize the East Village and Sherman Hill. He renovated the six-story Teachout Building in 1998 and his firm has worked on 13 projects in the East Village, according to the company's website.

Blunck owns several properties that house some of the East Village's more notable institutions and new hot spots, including the Locust Tap, Wooly’s and Up-Down.

In downtown’s Western Gateway, Blunck helped transform the century-old Crane Building, once a toilet factory, into apartments for artists.

He had been involved with the Des Moines Art Center since 1980. He helped develop the plans for a wing of the museum and completed other project studies over the years, according to the architecture firm’s website.

Blunck had fallen out of favor at City Hall in recent years. In 2014, the city nearly evicted tenants of a Blunck-owned apartment complex in Sherman Hill until last-minute repairs fixed issues like exposed asbestos and a lack of screens and fire exit signs. A Register investigation in June 2014 revealed Blunck owed the city more than $1 million for two loans he received in the 1990s to renovated East Village buildings.

Later in 2014, the city shut down the Locust Tap after an inspection revealed “excessive decay” to the floor and other code violations. It re-opened last year.

Despite his run-ins with the city, Jack Porter, a local preservation consultant, said Blunck's dedication to resurgent neighborhoods like the East Village cannot be overlooked.

“The architecture community has suffered a tremendous blow with the loss of Kirk Blunck," Porter said. "He tried to do it right, whatever the cost."