North Liberty, Iowa, is a fast-growing town with many more new buildings to come. Currently, many exciting restaurants and businesses have arrived in the North Liberty area.
Ryan Rusnak (he/him), the Planning Director of North Liberty, Iowa, partially decides what businesses will come to the North Liberty area.
Businesses pick out an area that they think would profit their business most. They look at adjacent developments, how many people come through and more.
“The process of developing a business relies more on the business itself. The business works with private developing companies to try and build. [The city planners] don’t choose or tell what business where to go, and then we work with the developer to develop the land and ask if we would support it,” explained Rusnak.
Although the city planners usually do not work with the businesses directly, there are certain cases where they ask that a business would be added to North Liberty.
“There are some businesses that we do want, for the longest time we wanted a bowling alley in this town. We never actively went out and asked a business to come here but we did offer some financial aid for the business to come here,” said Rusnak.
Pizza Ranch, 1355 Hayes Ln. Suite 1, North Liberty, IA 52317
An all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, located next to the Palestra (gym) has been built in North Liberty. Pizza Ranch offers many menu items such as pizza, dessert pizza, chicken and much more. The price range per person consists of $10- $20 and the restaurant offers a fun game room for children.
“Pedestrian access is really important to me. If you’ve ever seen the Pizza Ranch you can get to the sidewalk pretty easily and are able to access it more accessibly,” explained Rusnak.
Posy Bakery and Cakes, 565 Cameron Way #108 North Liberty, IA 52317
Posy Bakery and Cakes is a locally owned business right across from the coffee shop, Scooters. They offer space to hold events like birthday parties, bridal showers, baby showers and much more. They make cakes for special events like birthdays, weddings and more. But they also offer coffee, espresso drinks and French pastries if you want to stop in and grab a quick treat. If you are interested, their website is Posy Bakery and Cakes.
“North Liberty is a fairly locally owned business type of city. Where we can support small businesses, [like] an owner coming to us and saying they could start a successful business in their own home, we can be supportive in the planning world by letting them run a small business and eventually, they might realize they have something successful here that can expand into more,” said Rusnak.
Chicken Salad Chick, 2510 Corridor Way #6b, Coralville, IA 52241
Although it is not directly in North Liberty, Chicken Salad Chick is a large corporation that serves many varieties of chicken salad. It was founded in 2008 by Stacy and Kevin Brown and over time after perfecting their chicken salad it evolved into a thriving business.
Recently, there has been a large lot across from Liberty High School that has started to be developed. Kwik Star has submitted an application to go in part of that lot, but it is not 100%.
