When Toby Joseph decided to open a Josephs Jewelers store in West Glen Town Center, he chose to buy a corner lot, so that if the center did not take off, it would not affect his business.

Two years later, he is thrilled with how West Glen is doing and is looking forward to its completion. Not to mention, his company has surpassed its 10-year business plan in two years.

“I didn’t think the development would be as nice as it has turned out,” he said. “I have to admit that I’m pleasantly surprised.”

Josephs is one of three anchor businesses that boosted West Glen’s initial phase of development, which was completed in two years, a year earlier than planned.

After seeing this success, West Glen investors and planners decided to go back to the drawing board last summer and rethink the rest of their project. A slightly altered plan, which was approved by West Des Moines’ Plan and Zoning Commission last week and will go before the city council on Tuesday for a first review, calls for the area to be a “lifestyle center” with a mix of retail, office, residential and park space connected by pedestrian paths.

If approved, construction on some buildings and parking lots could begin as early as March, and Karen Hallagin, operations manager for West Glen Town Center LLC, expects the entire development to be built in three to four years.

The biggest change is that an area originally intended for big-box retailers north of the Avenue of the Arts will now be The Gardens: a four-story building for office and retail, a smaller one-story retail center and two parking lots. Hallagin said West Glen decided not to bring big-box retailers to the nine-acre area because it felt that approach would discourage pedestrian traffic and could create vehicular traffic problems, and that the site did not have the visibility some bigger retailers would want.

“The people who go to a Best Buy are not going to buy a flat-screen TV and then walk over to Younkers to buy a shirt,” she said. “It’s a single-destination stop. We wanted to create a community where you would walk from one side to the other.”

Working with Eric Wessels and Mike Simonson of Simonson and Associates Architects LLC, the West Glen brain trust also looked at ways to alleviate potential traffic and parking problems. In addition to two larger parking lots, they will build a roundabout encircling a park, where roads from the small retail center, Performing Arts Center and the Avenue of the Arts intersect.

The developers also decided to increase West Glen’s green space and pathways after seeing how many people came for its events and then stayed to shop. An open area next to the Fountain Plaza, the site of most of those events, will have two small restaurants with outdoor patios, and a long pedestrian trail will connect the buildings behind the Avenue of the Arts to the central park area.

The 10-story residential building originally planned for the end of West Glen’s promenade will now be a one-story retail center, because the developers felt a tall building would be too imposing on the small-town village environment, Hallagin said. A smaller four-story residential building will be built in the North Village.

Plans for the North Village Office Campus remain largely unchanged, but West Glen is looking for a day-care center for the area.

To reach this final plan, West Glen worked through several revisions with city officials and Ladco Development Inc., which is developing the Village of Ponderosa next to the complex. Ladco especially was concerned about having parking lots and buildings adjacent to its residential neighborhoods. West Glen agreed to make a few minor changes, such as putting in more landscaping between the two developments and making its buildings attractive on all four sides.

“They’re trying to create their property and their look and we want to make sure that we’re complementary because this is all tying together,” Hallagin said.

Both developers say the two projects will boost each other. Hallagin pointed out that Ponderosa will have 550 housing units, providing a strong customer base for West Glen, and Dennis Reynolds, development design director for Ladco, said there will be potential customers for its commercial center among the employees in the area.

“It just adds to the critical mass of activity that’s within walking distance of our residential neighborhood and also creates additional potential customers for our market streets,” Reynolds said.

So far West Glen is encouraged by the results of its first phase and the strong interest it has received from local and national retailers for its undeveloped land. Hallagin said 95 percent of its residential units, 100 percent of its office space, and 80 to 85 percent of its commercial space has been leased.

“We have the luxury of having a full space and the luxury of being able to build on demand,” Hallagin said. “We don’t have enough places to put the individuals who would like to be at West Glen.”

In its proposed buildings, West Glen would like to attract a few national tenants to support its many local retailers and is working with RED Brokerage LLC of Kansas City, Mo., which has worked on 47 mixed-use and lifestyle centers, Hallagin said, and has contacts for major national retailers that are not in Iowa.

Although there is always a fear of too much commercial development, especially along the Mills Civic Parkway corridor, Hallagin said, it hasn’t happened yet for West Glen. She also said West Glen has the advantage of being one of the first developments in the area to be completed.

The concentration of pedestrian traffic and making it a destination place will also make it unique, Hallagin said. “Our goal is that on a Sunday morning when individuals wake up and want something to do, they’ll say, ‘Let’s go to West Glen,’ as opposed to a particular destination store.”