Grimes, Iowa

Moving to Grimes, Iowa: An Honest 2026 Relocation Guide

Grimes, Iowa is a fast-growing city on the northwest edge of the Des Moines metro, with a population of 17,809 as of the September 15, 2025 Special Census, newer housing stock, unusually deep park and sports amenities, and a mean commute of about 19.6 minutes. You gain new construction, growing schools, and easy metro access. You plan for driving nearly everywhere, years of road construction, and the fact that your exact address decides your county and your school district. This guide covers cost, neighborhoods, schools, commuting, recreation, food, healthcare, and move-in tasks.

Two things shape everything below. First, Grimes straddles the Polk and Dallas County line, so taxes, county services, and vehicle paperwork depend on where the property sits. Second, the census figures quoted everywhere are dated, point-in-time medians, not today’s asking prices.

Grimes, Iowa at a Glance: Location, Population, and Growth

You’ll also see a Census estimate of 17,405 residents as of July 1, 2025, up 12.2% from the April 2020 base. That isn’t a contradiction: one is an annual estimate with a July reference date, the other a full head count taken later in the year. The population has roughly doubled since 2010, and inside a footprint of a few square miles that growth shows up as new subdivisions, expanding commercial corridors, and infrastructure work on nearly every side of town.

What You Gain, and What to Plan For, Living in Grimes

What you gain:

• Newer housing in several forms, from single-family homes to townhomes and apartments
• Large sports complexes, trails, and neighborhood parks in nearly every direction
• Dallas Center-Grimes schools plus the full Des Moines job market about 20 minutes away
• A community that turns out for Governors Days, library programming, and youth leagues

What to plan for:

• Daily driving, with limited scheduled transit
• Ongoing road and infrastructure construction, including public improvement projects slated for 2026
• A dining and entertainment scene that is still filling in
• County and school district differences from one address to the next

The city adopted its 2050 Comprehensive Plan on December 16, 2025, so nobody expects the growth to slow.

Cost of Living and Housing Costs in Grimes

Baseline housing figures (2020-2024 ACS five-year estimates):

Read those as a rolling five-year average, not a price tag. A median gross rent of $1,251 blends leases signed years ago with newer ones, so a currently listed unit can land well above it. Same logic on home value, and on the median income figure, which reflects a lot of dual-earner households. Property taxes vary by county, school district, assessed value, and exemptions, which is why we won’t quote one Grimes number. Check with the Polk or Dallas County treasurer for your parcel. Iowa’s individual income tax rate is 3.8% for tax year 2026.

Renting vs. Buying Your First Year in Grimes

If you’re new to the metro, renting first buys you information. You learn which side of town matches your commute, how Highway 141 behaves at 5 p.m., and where school boundaries actually fall before you commit six figures. If you hope to buy inside a specific elementary attendance area, that year of homework pays for itself. Run the numbers with our Rent Calculator, Rent vs. Buy Calculator, and Cost of Living Calculator.

Grimes Neighborhoods, New Residential Development, and Commercial Development

Development is spread across the city, not concentrated in one corner. Here’s how the neighborhoods differ by housing form, community feel, and road access:

• Governors District: the civic and commercial core, with small town bones and community events downtown, targeted for redevelopment, public art, trails, and added dining and retail.
• Beaverbrooke/Gateway and northeastern Grimes: newer commercial development, apartments and townhomes, the library, and sports destinations.
• Western Grimes near Highway 44 and County Line Road: the busiest new residential development in the city, mixing single-family, townhome, apartment, and mixed-use projects.
• Southern growth corridors: residential development woven together with civic and commercial uses, plus street projects affecting access.
• Established central streets: older neighborhoods near Lions Park and city facilities, more exposed to the future Highway 44 work.

Bigger projects in the pipeline include Diamond Ridge Estates, roughly 400 townhome and apartment units by 2028, and The Home Place, 40 condominium units. The 2050 plan calls for housing at multiple scales, from entry-level apartments through move-up homes and senior independent living, so the community should keep adding options instead of one product type. Check the city’s current development projects page, and verify county and school district address by address.

What School District Serves Grimes? Dallas Center-Grimes Schools and Beyond

Not every Grimes address feeds Dallas Center-Grimes schools. Depending on where you land, you may be zoned to Johnston or Urbandale schools instead. Most relocation guides get this wrong, and in a city expanding this fast, boundaries move.

Dallas Center-Grimes reports about 3,500 students across seven schools: four elementary schools, a grades 5-6 building, a grades 7-8 building, and a high school. District-reported figures include a 97% graduation rate, 13 AP courses, 13 career academy programs, and a device for every student in grades K-12. Online registration generally opens February 1 for the following year, and the district asks two business days to process it. Open enrollment deadlines are listed as March 1 for most students and September 1 for kindergarten. The schools double as community hubs here, since gyms, fields, and activity nights carry much of the local calendar for families.

How to Verify Your School District Before You Sign a Lease

1. Write down the exact property address, including any unit number.
2. Run it through the Iowa Department of Education’s resident-district address lookup and boundary maps for the schools near you.
3. Call the district office to confirm, and ask about open enrollment deadlines if your family will be applying out.

Commuting from Grimes to Des Moines and West Des Moines

Grimes workers report a 19.6-minute mean travel time to work. Highway 141 and I-35/80 put downtown Des Moines, West Des Moines, and the metro’s healthcare, finance, and retail employers within a reasonable drive.

Be clear-eyed about transit. Fixed-route DART service in Grimes ended in June 2025 and was replaced by on-demand service. HIRTA lists one-way fares of $3 within town and $6 within the county or for limited Grimes-to-Des Moines trips. Fares and availability change, so confirm before you build a commute around them. Practically speaking, you’ll want a car.

The Highway 44 Project and 2026 Road Work

Phase 1 of the Highway 44 project is expected to begin in 2029, with phased work continuing to at least 2034 and preliminary access work before that. Several other public improvement and infrastructure projects are planned for 2026, so check the city’s current projects page before you pick a street.

Parks, Sports, and Things to Do in Grimes

This is where Grimes genuinely outperforms its size:

• A 49-acre multisport complex (GrimesPlex)
• A 45-acre South Sports Complex and a 26.5-acre North Sports Complex
• An 8.5-acre Water Works Park with a splash pad
• Neighborhood parks including Lions Park, plus playgrounds, shelters, courts, a skate park, and trails

Governors Days brings the whole community out every June, and the Grimes Public Library runs programming year-round for all ages alongside 2026 youth and adult sports and seasonal recreation. Nearby you’ll find disc, foot, and park golf on one 18-hole course, traditional golf, indoor climbing, trampoline and ninja facilities, and retro arcade and pinball entertainment.

Food, Coffee, and Shopping in Grimes

You’ll find pizza, Mexican food, coffee, ice cream, bar-and-grill dining with patios, prepared foods, and grocery, including the Hy-Vee Multiplex that opened in October 2023. The selection is expanding, and the city’s own 2050 plan names additional dining, retail, and entertainment as a high-priority goal, which tells you the community knows it isn’t finished. For a bigger night out, downtown Des Moines and West Des Moines are close. Hours and openings shift often, so check before you drive over.

Hospitals and Healthcare Near Grimes

Grimes has primary care, family medicine, pediatrics, dermatology, and an outpatient surgery center, so routine family healthcare stays in town. What it does not have is a full-service 24-hour hospital emergency department. A West Des Moines hospital ER serves all ages and is designated a Level IV Trauma Center, and downtown Des Moines has a verified Level I adult trauma center. Drive times vary too much by address, weather, and construction to promise a number. For emergencies, call 911.

Weather, Flood Risk, and Safety in Grimes

Central Iowa gives you four real seasons: snow and ice, spring thunderstorms, heavy rain, and summer heat. The Des Moines area’s annual precipitation normal is 36.55 inches under NOAA’s 1991-2020 period. Sign up for the city’s severe-weather alerts, and check flood risk parcel by parcel with the Iowa DNR floodplain viewer rather than trusting a citywide statement. For safety, skip the ranking sites and pull official numbers from the Iowa Department of Public Safety crime dashboard, filtering by agency and comparing the same reporting periods. The Grimes non-emergency police line is 515-286-3333.

New Resident Checklist: Utilities, Vehicles, and City Hall Tasks

New residents of Grimes, Iowa have a short list of tasks:

1. Confirm your county (Polk or Dallas) and school district.
2. Open a municipal water account with the city, which also starts trash and recycling billing. Apartments and townhomes may have association-managed service.
3. Set up electricity, gas, and internet, confirming availability at your exact address.
4. Title and register your vehicle within 30 days of establishing Iowa residency, and update your license. Moving between Iowa counties? Report the address change to your former county treasurer within 10 days.
5. Change your mailing address.
6. License cats and dogs over six months old, currently $5 per animal annually with rabies documentation.
7. Register for school, get a library card, and sign up for community recreation leagues.
8. Sign up for city emergency alerts and check active road projects near your street.

Trash is generally collected Monday south of 1st Street and Tuesday north of 1st Street, with recycling every other week. Verify the current schedule and fees with City Hall.

Is Moving to Grimes, Iowa Right for You?

Moving to Grimes, Iowa works if you want newer housing, heavy access to parks and youth sports, a commute under 20 minutes, and you’re fine driving daily. With a median age near 34 and 2.67 people per household, the population skews toward young families, and the small town core still shows through all the growth. It’s a weaker fit if you need scheduled bus service, hope to walk to a mature dining district today, or would rather not live near multi-year road work. New to the metro? Rent first. A year on the ground teaches you more about the community than any guide can.

Frequently Asked Questions

Your Next Step Before You Sign

Run your numbers first: our Rent Calculator, Rent vs. Buy Calculator, and Cost of Living Calculator will show what a Grimes budget actually looks like. Then browse rentals nationwide.

KT Rents is a full-service, broker-owned property management company operating nationwide since 2009, managing 683 units across 34 states with $187M in assets under management as of early 2025 and a reported 98% occupancy rate. If you own property, we handle tenant placement, tenant screening, rent collection, property maintenance, property inspections, rental permits, 1099s and court evictions without the owner lifting a finger, for about the price of a cup of coffee and a donut a day. Call (800) 716-4950, text (608) 207-0657, or email info@ktrents.com. We respond within 24 hours.