Mallmanac.com: Valley West Mall, West Des Moines, IA

A dead mall

When I visit a city, there is usually one mall that I look forward to seeing the most. On my recent trip to Des Moines, that destination was the first generation, 1959 built Merle Hay Mall. But there was another facility in the Iowa state capital that left an even bigger impression on me.

1 to 4- The front façade of Valley West Mall. 5 to 8- The center’s main entrance.

Des Moines has a surprisingly good mall game for a city its size with six having been built in the metro over the decades, with all still standing although one has been completely demalled. But I planned my stopover when I did having heard news that Valley West Mall was soon to be the first to be completely closed and demolished.

1 to 3- The north front face of Valley West Mall. 4- The northwestern mall entrance. 5 to 8- The vacant Von Maur store. 9 & 10- The disused and barricaded parking deck.

I hit up the West Des Moines located, double tiered complex right after Jordan Creek Town Center, also located within the same suburb. From my approach on I-235 and Valley West Drive, I could already see the hulking, vacant former Younkers store surrounded by a worn and cracking asphalt tarmac.

Valley West Mall lease plan ca. 1977. View the full PDF here.

The main entrance was disappointingly basic without the name of the shopping center even being displayed. In its place was the logo for JCPenney, the retail destination’s final remaining traditional department store anchor. Just inside, it was apparent why Valley West Mall was slated to die- all storefronts save for one were darkened.

1 to 4- The flanking northern façade and lower level entrance to Valley West Mall. 5 to 8- JCPenney, the lone remaining anchor.

It wasn’t long before I was standing on the upper mezzanine of center court where and I had to stop for a minute just to take it all in. Decked out in speckled maroon carpet beneath my feet, saffron painted ceilings punctuated with a number of boxy skylights above my head and plenty of earthy autumn tones in between, I was immediately left in awe.

Though renovated around the time of its competitor at Jordan Creek Town Center’s opening in the early part of the century, the color palette was anything but subtle and featured an array of darker hues. Looking down from the wood topped glass railings, I could see the remnants of now barren water features and plenty of greenery left to grow just as it pleased.

1 to 5- The southern rear façade of Valley West Mall. 6 to 8- The former Younkers store.

It was the perfect combination of more contemporary design elements featuring stone wall cladding modern lighting features blended with abundant greenery and blue painted basins once filled with flowing water that were reminiscent of early mall design. Valley West Mall was an anomaly in today’s retail environment, so of course it is soon to be destroyed.

Built with a footprint typical for its age, a double stacked, straight line main concourse with an anchor on each end and one in the middle, the corridors on the upper level were wide and open with plenty of natural light streaming in from rather large skylights. Unfortunately, nearly all of the gates were in the down position with no patrons to shop any that were still hanging on.

1 to 4- Just inside Valley West Mall’s main entrance. 5 to 8- The fully empty food court. 9 & 10- JCPenney’s mall entrance at center court.

I descended to the first level in front of the former entrance to the northern anchor, Von Maur. I was greeted by the miniscule, 1998 added food court. None of the stalls were occupied and even the seating area was faintly lit, with the only light emanating from several neon tubes meandering along the ceiling.

Valley West Mall lease plan ca. 2006. View the full PDF here.

The bottom tier was just as abandoned as its upper level counterpart, though the walkway remained airy and wide with the only former tenant I was able to identify being Spencer’s. On the upside, Valley West Mall was completely devoid of the old, stale air smell that I’ve encountered in most other dead malls, and I was happy about that.

Center court from the ground floor was no less impressive than from the mezzanine. The sun was high in the sky by this late morning hour with the abundant sunshine casting freckled shadows as it passed through the disheveled canopies of trees with rogue branches reaching out over the trail-like paths winding through Valley West’s midsection.

Valley West Mall’s stunning center court from the second level.

I lingered beneath those branches for a longer time than I normally do before making my way to the southern portion of Valley West Mall. This half of the main concourse was nearly identical to the northern section, down to almost all of the storefronts being unoccupied. I then made my way back up to the second level in front of the former Younkers store.

I exited again to document Valley West Mall’s exterior façade at the main entrance, with no more cars having shown up since I had begun my exploration. Just outside was the outdoor entrance to one of the few tenants, Blaze Pizza, but there was little else to see besides the monolithic, dark coffee colored brick walls leading to rather basic interior entranceways.

Center Court and Valley West Mall’s distinctive ceiling and skylights.

Around the backside of the former Von Maur store was the double tiered parking deck which was gated off but seemed to be in good shape. Midway down Valley West Mall’s flanking side lay the complex’s sole remaining significant tenant, a JCPenney store that has been in operation since the rest of the structure was a mere two years old.

It wasn’t long before I was heading back to my hotel in downtown Des Moines, completely stoked at the variety of different shopping malls that I found in the city. Although my happiness was tempered by the knowledge that my favorite of all of them, Valley West Mall, would soon be the first to be reduced to rubble.

Valley West Mall lease plan ca. 2016. View the full PDF here.

Valley West Mall opened in 1975 after several delays in construction due to litigation between the developers and the Meredith Corporation as well as Minneapolis based Dayton Hudson. It originally debuted with only one anchor- Omaha based Brandeis on its southern end with exceptional visibility from the abutting freeway.

The lower tier of Valley West Mall’s noteworthy center court.

Just a year later, at its 1976 official grand opening, the second anchor, Davenport based Petersen Harned Von Maur turned their lights on at Valley West Mall’s north end. After another year, JCPenney took possession of their space at the center’s mid-point, having postposed their construction due to the pending disputes.

The first significant change came to Valley West Mall in 1987 with Brandeis’s exit after a takeover by Des Moines based Younkers. The local nameplate opened their doors the same year. In 1999, Dillard’s of Little Rock, Arkansas signed a letter of intent to be the fourth anchor, but Jordan Creek’s coming entry to the market scuttled those plans.

The northern half of Valley West Mall’s main upper concourse leading to the darkened Von Maur.

By the turn of the century Valley West Mall was at the peak of its popularity and attracted more shoppers than its competitors Merle Hay Mall and Southridge Mall. This success, however, was to be short lived as a nearly two million square foot juggernaut would soon be rising just across West Des Moines from the twenty five year old incumbent.

Dillard’s had backed out of their plans at Valley West Mall in favor of completely new digs at Jordan Creek Town Center. While the parking deck and food court were added to the center in the late nineties, they did little to stem the tide of both shoppers and retailers making their way to the shiny new entrant.

The bottom tier of the northern corridor capped by Von Maur.

Though Valley West Mall was able to hold their own for a decade or so, it would soon buckle under the weight of both its new competitor as well as the coming retail apocalypse, made even worse by the pandemic. Younkers was the first anchor to throw in their towel when owners The Bon-Ton Stores decided to retire the nameplate.

Valley West Mall lease plan ca. 2025. View the full PDF here.

As the entirety of the Younkers chain was being phased out, long-time tenant Von Maur made their exit soon after in 2021, taking advantage of the former's darkened anchor space at, you guessed it, Jordan Creek Town Center. At that point, with only a weakened anchor in JCPenney remaining, many of the smaller retailers soon followed suit.

1 to 6- The southern concourse of Valley West Mall’s upper level. 7 to 10- The closed former entrance to Younkers.

In just a couple of years, Valley West Mall was nothing more than a hollowed out husk of what once was Des Moines’ most visited retail destination. A number of proposals have since been made for the site, which was originally slated for demolition in late 2026, but any plans remain on hold due to a recent change in developers.

1- The short corridor leading to Valley West Mall’s southeastern entrance. 2 to 8- The bottom tier of the southern half of the main concourse.

Valley West Mall remains in limbo. Though the structure itself still seems to be solid without even any water stains to mar its awesome interior, any delays in redevelopment just serve as temporary stays of execution. I’m thankful to have gotten to experience this beauty before its time runs out.