(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa National Guard plans to close the Shenandoah armory, shifting the 132 members of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry, and units from Sheldon and Sioux City to the guard’s new West Des Moines readiness center in 2025.

Shenandoah Mayor Roger McQueen says they were able to meet with the guard’s adjutant general, and other guard officials prior to Friday’s announcement.”They came down to personally come in and tell us about the closing mainly due to recruitment you know that has to have a number that they like to keep down there and that number had fallen and so they will relining a lot of their armories right now in the state. The move means the Iowa Guard won’t have a presence in Shenandoah for the first time in 145 years.

McQueen calls the armory’s pending closure “a sad deal.” “Nobody wants to lose anything you know in a town our size, but these have been happening all over the state, you know Corning, Algona, there’s some other smaller ones that have closed,” McQueen says. “And so yeah, it’s sad after all these years. That was one thing they wanted to make sure and stress that Shenandoah didn’t have any hard feelings or anything like that.”

Shenandoah National Guard Armory.

The mayor says there’s no ill feelings from the city toward the Iowa Guard.”You know times change and so you know we’ve appreciated everything they’ve done when they’ve been here. They’ve done a great job in the last two-three-four years of getting out in the public and so forth, but like I say things change and we wish them the best.” McQueen told guard officials the city is interested in the armory building. However, McQueen says it’s too early to discuss what the property’s acquisition would mean for the city, and what it would be used for.

Guard officials say the closure process includes an official sequence of events and timeline required by the Iowa Department of Public Defense and State Armory Board, with full divestiture by the spring of 2025. The guard indicates it will guide the city and state through key milestones that include the armory’s sale.