T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Five Star Real Estate and The Outlet owners Kristin and Kurt Polley, pictured, pose for a photo in front of their new office at 119 E. Main St.

Kurt and Kristin Polley are used to hearing all about the big city amenities Marshalltown doesn’t have, but instead of joining in the chorus of complaints, they’ve opted to do something to change that themselves.

“You know, you can either just keep sitting around and thinking and dreaming and talking about it, or you can just finally say ‘If we don’t do it, who’s gonna do it?'” Kristin asked. “We’re proud of our community. We’re proud of where we’re going, and we believe there’s a really good future ahead for the town. People love to go to small towns and be on the Main Streets everywhere else, and we just need Marshalltown to be like that. So we need more people to take risks and take chances.”

The Polleys, both lifelong residents and MHS graduates, recently completed the move of their main business, Five Star Real Estate Group, from its former location on South Center Street to a renovated downtown office at 119 E. Main St. In addition, they’ve launched “The Outlet,” a state-of-the-art co-working space available for rent through a variety of packages and membership options, which is believed to be the first of its kind locally.

“After the tornado, it kind of wrecked our downtown, and we started to think about the future of Marshalltown and where growth could happen. And being in real estate, obviously, (you’re) selling people their dreams,” Kurt said. “I’m always interested in learning something new, so doing a commercial project that I’d never done (was exciting). What we kind of decided we might pitch to Kristin was ‘We can either sell other people opportunity and dreams, or we can be at the forefront in the beginning of it saying ‘Hey, we’re gonna come in and move our business to the downtown’ and believe in it and say ‘If we can do it, you can do it.'”

After taking possession of the adjacent buildings at 119 and 123 E. Main St. in September of 2021 (what will become of 123 E. Main remains to be seen), the couple started working on designs about a year ago and started construction in December of 2022, with Kurt, who has a background in construction and agriculture before moving over to real estate with his wife, serving as the general contractor and utilizing a host of local subcontractors.

Surprisingly, considering its location, the building didn’t suffer much tornado damage, but it still required plenty of work to get it to where Kurt and Kristin wanted it to be. Kurt, for one, is proud that their efforts have paid off as, in his words, “they didn’t do it halfway.”

“This building is built so well. These walls are honestly this thick except for we added a 2×4 wall because we added insulation, but it’s three layers of brick. It’s unbelievable how well this building is built,” Kurt said.

The initial interest in a co-working arrangement arose from a practical concern: although the Polleys were excited to invest in a downtown building and be part of its revitalization, they weren’t sure they needed all of the space at their new office with just 11 total employees working at Five Star. When Small Nation Founder Jason Duff of Bellefontaine, Ohio, visited Marshalltown last summer and toured several buildings, they showed him their future home base, and he immediately suggested the idea.

Kurt said that while they had considered something similar without officially coining it a co-working space, it was a lightbulb moment for he and Kristin, and they went out to Bellefontaine themselves before touring other co-working facilities in Iowa and deciding to take the plunge.

“We can either keep letting the other towns that are 30 to 45 minutes around us have the things we want, or we can have them here. And so this is just something that we really felt that we know people are using,” Kristin said. “We have friends that are using (them) in other communities, and so it’s like ‘Why not?’ Why not here?”

Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO John Hall is happy to see the investment in the downtown and happy that some of Duff’s ideas have found receptive audiences locally, noting that his organization awarded the Polleys a grant for the project. They also received a Marshalltown Central Business District (MCBD) grant for downtown facade improvements and a grant from the city for code upgrades.

“We are incredibly excited to see the Polleys take this plunge in doing the co-working space. This idea first sparked for them (pun intended) when we had Small Nation in town to tour our community and be our annual banquet speaker in 2022, and love that we are officially at the point of opening up,” Hall said. “The Chamber was proud to support them with the $25,000 retail grant on this project, and while we know this wasn’t an exact fit, we felt that the use of this space fits extraordinarily well with the business ventures we want to attract to our community and to downtown.”

Because they’re already in a business built on connections — and because their new office was once an Alliant Energy power and light building — The Outlet seemed like the perfect name.

“The other part of why we wanted to have this space is (that) our business is all relational and we wanted our agents to have an opportunity to just have relationships with other businesspeople, other solopreneurs, other people that maybe are stuck working at home but want to really be in a different kind of atmosphere,” Kristin said.

Along with desks, chairs and offices, The Outlet features a brand new kitchen, and — unsurprisingly — copious amounts of coffee, with a machine that can whip up a classic cup, a flavored latte or anything in between for anyone in need of a caffeine boost. The space is now available for tours, and the plan is to formally open to the public on Aug. 28.

“Technology wise, we’re ready for everyone’s meeting needs. We have a great print station in that capacity, so we’ve got all different spaces,” Kristin said. “If they want to have a real casual, cozy soft meeting space or they need a more formal board space, or they want to meet around a kitchen counter, we’ve got all of that.”

A ribbon cutting and open house is scheduled for Sept. 13 from 4 to 7 p.m., and Five Star, which can be reached at (641) 752-5500, is still open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. To learn more about The Outlet, visit www.theoutletcowork.com or call (641) 752-0792.