A new mural now wraps around the Unleash Council Bluffs office and Iowa Welcome Center at 23rd Avenue and South Expressway, honoring the native plants, pollinators and landscapes that make this corner of Iowa unique. The site also includes interpretive panels to help visitors learn about the art and the native plants growing just outside the building's doors.
The four-sided work, titled “Unleashing Flower Power,” comes from local artist Betni Kalk, according to Unleash Council Bluffs. The organization describes it as a vibrant piece celebrating native plants, pollinators and southwest Iowa's natural beauty, and notes that the native plantings surrounding the building were chosen specifically because they showcase species that thrive in western Iowa's landscape. Kalk's own website lists the project simply as a mural at Unleash, the Welcome Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, completed in September.
As reported by KMTV 3 News Now, the mural wraps the full exterior of the building, giving visitors something to look at from every angle as they walk around the welcome center grounds. The interpretive panels tie the artwork directly to the plantings outside, turning a quick pit stop off I-80/29 into a small lesson on regional ecology.
A Welcome Center With Deeper Roots
The building at 509 23rd Avenue has served as an official Iowa Welcome Center since January 2022, per the organization's own account relayed by the Council Bluffs Nonpareil. Its location on the South Expressway sits about half a mile from the interstate, making it an easy stop for travelers passing through. The same report notes the mural was inspired by the landscaping already surrounding the building, rather than being designed in isolation from the site.
Unleash Council Bluffs Executive Director Mark Eckman said the project has received positive feedback while helping make the visitor center more distinctive and welcoming, according to the Nonpareil's reporting. That framing fits with the center's broader role: it's meant to be a first impression of the region for out-of-town visitors, not just a place to grab a brochure.
Part Of A Bigger Pollinator Push
The mural lands against the backdrop of Council Bluffs' Bee City USA designation, which the city says recognizes its commitment to improving landscapes for pollinators, according to the City of Council Bluffs. The city's Bee City status means it has committed to being pollinator-friendly, as KMTV's sister outlet 3 News Now has separately reported. In that earlier coverage, Michelle Biodrowski warned that insect populations, including pollinators, are crashing very, very fast.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has also pushed homeowners toward pollinator-friendly native plants as part of their own landscaping, and Council Bluffs' own planting guidance recommends spacing native grasses and flowers closely together as an alternative to mulching every spring. Those guidelines echo the same native-species logic behind the plantings outside the welcome center.
Joining A Growing Mural Trail
The welcome center mural isn't Council Bluffs' only recent public art project. The city and the Iowa West Foundation completed four murals along the FIRST AVE trail at locations including 15 S. 20th Street, 29 S. 21st Street, 2200 2nd Avenue and 3415 West Broadway, according to Unleash Council Bluffs. Those works depict local history, transportation, youth and regional landmarks like the Loess Hills and the Missouri River, with the city planning a public event to celebrate them this spring.
Together, the FIRST AVE murals and the new pollinator-themed wrap at the welcome center point to a city leaning into public art as a way to tell its own story, whether that's through industrial history downtown or native prairie plants greeting travelers off the interstate.
