The buzz surrounding Jordan Creek Town Center is far from being over. The shoppers inside the mall were only the beginning. Now developers are planning a great number of projects – housing, retail and services – to benefit from the “Jordan Creek effect.”

“What we really saw is that a lot of people were holding tight to see if Jordan Creek was going to happen, said Clyde Evans, the community development director for the city of West Des Moines. “Now that it’s going great guns out there, people are scrambling to find available property and housing.”

The Jordan Creek effect, a phrase used to describe the far-reaching implications of construction, jobs and revenue that have entered West Des Moines and other cities near the the shopping center, is really “a whole package,” Evans said. Part of this package, he said, is the 960,000-square-foot Wells Fargo & Co. campus, which will be open a year from now.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that we were building all this infrastructure for Jordan Creek, we wouldn’t have been able to so easily land the Wells Fargo project,” he said.

For West Des Moines, the circumstances leading up to today’s large-scale development can be traced back to the city’s adoption of a mixed-use development concept for the area, Evans said.

“One of the things the City Council said is that we wanted to look at doing a different plan here,” he said. “We wanted to maximize our investment in infrastructure, so we threw out the old stereotypes about separating commercial and residential classifications and developed the overlay district. It lets the developers use their imagination in coming up with things that are different or unique than what had been done before.”

The thought was, Evans said, that if people lived, worked and shopped in the Jordan Creek overlay district, the area would have more vibrancy, instead of being “like a ghost land after 5 p.m.” Weeknight traffic at Jordan Creek Town Center is “steady,” according to mall managers, who expect the activity level to increase as further development is completed outside the mall.

Success inside the mall

According to Rocell Viniard, senior marketing manager for Jordan Creek Town Center, the shopping center expects to surpass its earlier estimates of attracting 12 million visitors in the first year.

“We were expecting to draw 12 million visitors, which industry trends show is a realistic goal for a really strong mall in their first year, and we’re on track to exceed it,” Viniard said.

Around 3.5 million people have already visited the mall, according to Jordan Creek’s calculations based on its electric car counters. During August, its opening month, the shopping center had slightly more than 2 million visitors, and October is expected to also be a big month, Viniard said.

“For the weekend of Oct. 9 and 10 we saw about 140,000 visitors, which is very comparable to what the numbers were at the end of August,” she said. “Granted, we’re getting some holiday shopping, which will really start to get serious as the month progresses.”

Viniard said traffic in and around Jordan Creek will climb as more new homes and offices come to the area, along with stores and restaurants opening for business. Two more restaurants, Bravo! and On the Border, will be open by the end of this month; the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel and The Market will follow in November; and the grand opening of the new Costco store is slated for early December.

So far, according to Chris Jaeger, the assistant general manager of the mall, there are already many success stories among mall stores, especially those marketing to teens, such as J.Crew and Forever 21. At J.Crew, store manager Joe Maioriello said sales have “blown away their expectations,” and the store’s sales team has been pleased to find a stronger-than-expected customer base, ranging from ages 18 to 45.

“I think that moms are realizing that J.Crew isn’t just a place for college girls to pick up clothes,” Maioriello said. “We have a steady base of women shoppers during the weekdays, people who want to look nice and enjoy the fantastic quality of our fabrics.”

As expected, the home furnishings stores, department stores and restaurants have also “done phenomenally well,” Jaeger said. Bill Nelson, the store manager of Scheels All Sports, one of Jordan Creek’s three “anchor” retailers, said has been pleased with his store’s early sales, especially in the general store area and gift lodge.

Claiming space outside

Two projects, West Glen Town Center and The Galleria at Jordan Creek, will each offer nearly a million square feet of space once they are fully developed. Another project, The Jordan Creek Crossing, will encompass almost 300,000 square feet.

Of these major projects, West Glen, expected to be complete in 2007, is the furthest along, Evans said. The SuperTarget anchor store opened in August, and construction is in progress on the Josephs Jewelers store, Schaffer’s bridal and formal wear shop and Sarto, an Italian clothing store operated by Midwest Clothiers, the parent company of Mr. B’s, Reichardt’s Clothing and Badowers.

Sarto, owned by Dave Lemons and Tim Sitzmann, will sell fine men and women’s clothing that hasn’t been available to the Des Moines market, Lemons said.

“We will carry lines that are currently only available in Kansas City, Minneapolis or much larger markets,” Lemons said. “It’s really going to be a store for people who love to buy clothes, not unlike the customers who we have now at Badowers, but Sarto will carry designs that have a little more edge to them.”

Lemons said he chose West Glen because he likes the “new urbanist” concept that it is based on, which integrates commercial, residential, entertainment and retail into one area.

“Hopefully, it will be a good center of locally based upscale businesses that will really play off of each other well,” Lemons said.

Mini communities to surround the mall

Bridgewood Plaza by Oaks Development Co. is one example of how retail and housing can co-exist and create convenience for nearby residents. Situated at the edge of the Bridgewood townhouse development, the 20-store retail center, which is about half leased, was designed to fit nicely with the residential area behind it, according to Randy Walters, the president of Oaks Development.

“We connected the street back in to the townhouse project and made sure that our buildings looked nice from their side,” Walters said. “I see people walking over to have lunch at our restaurants. Our location is also great because it’s at the entrance to the mall, where tens of thousands of cars pass by regularly.”

The Galleria, West Glen and The Crossing will also combine housing with commercial properties. At The Crossing, which is being developed by Walters Homes Ltd., condominium units will be stacked on top of retail spaces, which will be a first for the company. Dave Walters, the president and owner of Walters Homes, says the concept seems like a good fit for the area.

“I’m leasing a building that we’re working on that is going to be a combination of retail stores and office space with condos on the top floor,” he said. “This is the first project we have done like this, but it seems to be very conducive, especially in this area, where people want to be close to work, food and entertainment.”

At West Des Moines City Hall, Evans said he is looking at many plans from banks, cafes and shops that want to locate within the mini-communities such as the Galleria, Crossing and West Glen developments, as well as the area surrounding Jordan Creek Town Center. The banks are claiming their spots early, he said.

“I’m working with more banks than I can shake a stick at,” he said “I’m working with 14 different banks right now, which is more than I expected.”

The cost of being there

John Kline, a partner at Oaks Development, said his company recently sold a piece of undeveloped land zoned for retail use for $9 per square foot, but says he has heard of parcels being sold for more.

“We owned that piece of land for about two years, and we made a profit on selling it, even though what we sold it for might have been just a hair under the market,” he said. “We felt it was a fair price for both parties, and after all, we’re in the business of selling, not the business of holding on to land.”

Kline said he brokered that same piece of land 10 years ago to a partnership for $14,000 per acre. The $9 per square foot that Oaks Development received for that parcel calculates out to $392,040 per acre.

Even though land prices are at a premium, Dave Walters of Walters Homes said the decision to build homes, including his own, in close proximity to Jordan Creek has been good for both for the business and for himself.

“Activity will breed activity, and this is some of the best ground in the state of Iowa given where it’s at and the jobs that will be coming forth,” Dave Walters said. “We have many different projects going to suit different audiences.”

Walters Homes has sold all of its 111 lots in King Valley, a single-family residential area, for prices ranging from $300,000 to $500,000 per home. The company’s Bella Central condo project has sold 47 of its 120 units for about $125,000 each and will sell its first phase of 146 townhomes for about $225,000 each.

“It’s more expensive here than in a lot of areas, but you have to look past that and see the upside of it,” he said. “We build quality homes, and we’ve been able to price in perspective and get to the other side and make money. It’s all relative.”

New jobs and more sales

Viniard said Jordan Creek Town Center expects to employ about 4,500 people by the end of the year, as more stores and restaurants open and seasonal help is added for the holidays.

Laura Warner, the director of sales for the West Des Moines Marriott on Jordan Creek Parkway, says her hotel has had a lot of Jordan Creek-related business in recent months, especially from people associated with the shopping center.

“We were the host hotel for General Growth Properties Inc., so we had all the VIPs staying with us as the opening approached,” Warner said. “We’re still seeing an influx in business from guests staying with us as they prepare to open new stores and restaurants.”

Warner said some of Jordan Creek’s restaurants have used the hotel’s conference space for training sessions, interviewing and meetings. One restaurant conducted employment of interviews at the hotel for 18 consecutive days, she said. She said she expects to see seasonal surges of out-of-town guests visiting the mall during holidays, sports tournaments, prom season and other times throughout the year, and to benefit overall by being one of the large hotels near the mall.

“It’s a big benefit for us to be able to talk to potential customers about how close our location is, and we will be using it in our marketing from here on,” Warner said.

Greater Des Moines architects have also benefited from the Jordan Creek activity. Michael Gaunt said he was hired as a planner at Simonson & Associates LLC this summer to assist with the firm’s growing workload. Gaunt’s responsibilities include working on the Galleria and West Glen projects.

Bryan Shiffler, manager of Shiffler Associates Architects PLC, said his firm is involved with three projects associated with Jordan Creek: Camille’s Sidewalk Café, Liberty Bank and Sarto. It’s unusual to have so many projects going on in close proximity, he said.

“Our firm is probably working on 20 projects right now, and to have three of them being so close in proximity to each other means that area is commercially hot,” he said. “A change is obviously good for architecture firms, and this whole corridor is undergoing tremendous change.”