More than four years ago, a Ruth’s Chris Steak House franchisee reached out to Indiana-based CRG Residential about the possibility of anchoring a mixed-use project in the Greater Des Moines area.

“They wanted to come to Iowa and they wanted to be in a high-traffic area,” said John Lassaux, CRG Residential’s director of development and a West Des Moines native. Lassaux and his team looked at development possibilities in Ankeny, Waukee and West Des Moines, he said.

After much research, including studying demographics and traffic patterns, the group opted to develop a commercial and residential project on a 9.3-acre parcel on the southwest corner of Ashworth Road and Jordan Creek Parkway in West Des Moines.

“This was our third option and it ended up probably being our best option,” Lassaux said. “The two other options we were looking at were really great on the commercial front, but we also asked, ‘How did residential fit in?’ And it didn’t. On this property, you get Jordan Creek Parkway frontage for the commercial and then, there’s also residential on two other sides.

“It all matched from a mixed-use standpoint.”

The steakhouse, operated by Indianapolis, Ind.-based Prime Hospitality Group, opened last August. HomeGrown, a breakfast, brunch and lunch eatery, opened in April. In June, high-end residential apartment units will begin to be occupied.

The project, called the Cunningham, is about 1 mile south of the Interstate Highway 80 interchange at Jordan Creek Parkway, and a little over 1 mile north of Jordan Creek Town Center. Traffic on Jordan Creek Parkway at Ashworth Road averages 32,600 vehicles a day; traffic on Ashworth, west of Jordan Creek Parkway, averages 10,900 vehicles daily.

“This is probably one of the busiest intersections in the metro area,” Lassaux said.

About 10% of the Cunningham’s 199 one- and two-bedroom units have been preleased.
Interest in the apartments has been mostly from people in their 20s and early 30s, said Brandon Hillig, community manager for Des Moines-based BH Management, a property management firm. “There’s a lot of local business in this area – Wells Fargo, Jordan Creek Town Center – whose employees want to live near where they work.”

Construction on the four-story mixed-use project began in spring 2022. A building permit issued by the city of West Des Moines valued the project, located at 950 Jordan Creek Parkway, at just over $47.8 million. The apartments are in a four-story building that wraps around a three-story parking garage, courtyard and salt-water pool. The residential building connects to the restaurant and other retail spaces.

Interior apartments include units that overlook the pool and courtyard.

Each unit includes a built-in desk. “We were designing this project during COVID, when working from home was becoming a real thing,” Lassaux said.

The building also includes a first-floor workout room with state-of-the-art equipment, personal lockers for package deliveries, event space and a lounge.

Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which is spread over two floors and includes 18,300 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, features six private dining rooms and three bars. The private rooms can accommodate between eight and 120 guests.

The steakhouse is the third largest in size of Prime Hospitality Group’s Ruth’s Chris restaurants, said Michael Venutolo II, general manager of the West Des Moines location. The group also has locations in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina.

The harsh late winter slowed business at the restaurant but now “we are booked solid on the weekends,” Venutolo said. “We knew the banquet business would be good, but it’s taken off much more than we expected. It’s really picked up recently.”

About 6,370 square feet of retail space is left to lease, Christopher Stafford, director/senior vice president at Cushman & Wakefield, said.

“We could have leased all of the space by now, but the developer has been really sensitive to making sure everything complements one another, not only from a retail perspective but also complements each other, Stafford said. Ruth’s Chris is open for lunch and dinner; HomeGrown is open for breakfast and lunch and serves different items than the steakhouse, he said.