Grove & Burke, Inc. v. City of Fort Dodge

NEUMAN, Justice.

In 1985 the City of Fort Dodge destroyed a bridge spanning the Des Moines River between Amvets Drive and Hawkeye Avenue, replacing it with a bridge that veered north to join Hawkeye Avenue on both the east and west sides of the river. As a result, the traffic on Amvets Drive diminished. To reflect this decrease in traffic, the City reclassified Amvets Drive from a “municipal arterial street” to a “municipal secondary street.”

Plaintiff Grove & Burke, Inc., a retailer located on the corner of Amvets Drive and 4th Street N.W., sued the City over these changes. It claimed that by…