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They held up the development of Gateway West and dove into downtown housing when it still seemed like a shaky idea. Now the Gateway is blossoming, developers are building and rehabilitating apartments and condominium units all over downtown and last year, for the first time, Leslie Gearhart and Jodi Beavers actually made some money off the buildings they fought to save from demolition.
The two women formed Metropolitan Properties in 1994 to rehab apartments and houses in central Des Moines. They drew some attention in 1996 when they bought the Ayrshire Building on Sixth Avenue, a structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and spent a couple of years renovating it. But they...