Discount home retailer Bath & Body Works will open a store at Des Moines’ Southridge Mall, according to the mall’s owner, Travis Mansfield.
The Columbus, Ohio-based chain already has metro Des Moines locations in West Des Moines at Jordan Creek Town Center and at 4100 University Ave. near Whole Foods, at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines and at the Outlets of Des Moines in Altoona. The 4,000-square-foot store will go in the former Foot Locker space and will be Bath & Body Works’ largest store in the metro area. The store will open in March or April, Mansfield said.
“They wont have to do a lot of building out because it’s kind of ready to go,” Mansfield said of the former Foot Locker space. “Its’s a good situation for them to move into.”
Mansfield purchased Southridge Mall in December for $4 million from Santa Monica, California, real estate developer Macerich Co. The Bath & Body Works announcement comes after discount retailer Five Below announced plans to open a Southridge store in October.
Since then, Mansfield has taken out a $4 million loan to repair the mall’s roof, retouch parking lot paint and address other maintenance needs. Mansfield runs his NativeBid auction business, which sells returned items from Overstock.com, The Home Depot and other retailers, in the mall’s former Younkers store. Next year he also plans to open a trampoline park in the Younkers space.
What is happening at Southridge Mall?
A $35 million renovation completed in 2018 transformed the former enclosed mall into an open-air shopping center with a courtyard and outdoor access to most stores. Des Moines Area Community College opened a 65,000-square-foot Center for Career and Professional Development where JCPenney once operated. Genesis Health Club opened a $13.5 million gym in the mall’s former Sears store.
But with an AMC Movie Theater sitting vacant since 2023 and the former Younkers store underused, the south side of the mall has suffered. And shortly after Mansfield bought the mall in December, Foot Locker and Maurices on the north side closed. Bath & Body Works and Five Below will a fill holes in the mall, he said.
“We’ve got two brand new, great stores coming in there,” Mansfield said. “We had to get one of them and when that one came in the next one came in because they like being next to them.”
In early October the Iowa Bicycle Coalition and partners the Central Iowa Trail Association, the 80/35 BMX club and Skate DSM announced plans to build its $26.3 million Community Action Sports Complex — a planned indoor BMX track and skatepark — at Southridge in the former Younkers store and the theater.
Under the best-case scenario, funds to build the BMX track and skatepark will be raised in three to five years, bicycle coalition Executive Director Luke Hoffman said Sept. 30.
“The deciding factor was the willingness of Travis to be incredibly supportive and flexible with whatever the final design is, whether that means a rebuild of the space within the mall and then also the movie theater or whether that’s building a new space in the parking lot,” Hoffman said at the time.
Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184 or pjoens@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Home retailer Bath & Body Works to open store on Des Moines’ south side
Reporting by Philip Joens, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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