An aged northwest Des Moines shopping center has been purchased by a Kansas City-area real estate company and development firm that plans to modernize the center and add restaurants and small retail stores in the surface parking lot.

Haymarket Square, located on 27 acres on the northeast corner of Merle Hay Road and Aurora Avenue in Des Moines, includes a now-vacant grocery store originally occupied by Dahl’s. Price Chopper, a grocery chain that took over the space, closed the store in September 2022. Also included on the property are Office Depot and Northern Tool + Equipment.

“Over the years, there has been a lot of focus on newer suburban retail areas in the [Des Moines] metro, but the Merle Hay corridor is now experiencing momentum and a revival, which we are excited to be a part of,” Scott Lipovac, managing principal of Score Development in Overland Park, Kansas, wrote in an email. Score Development is partnering with Kansas City-based Block Real Estate Services LLC on the acquisition and redevelopment of the 270,000-square-foot Haymarket Square, 4343-4371 Merle Hay Road.

The investment group, through Haymarket Investors LLC, acquired the property for $16.5 million, Polk County real estate records show. The property includes the vacant grocery store property, a one-story retail center and outlots on which buildings for restaurants are located. The properties’ total assessed valuation is over $24.4 million, records show.

Haymarket Square was built in phases beginning in the mid-1970s.

Block Real Estate Services and Score Development are not strangers to the Des Moines market.

Block Real Estate Services entered the Des Moines market in 2014 and now owns seven warehouse properties, two multifamily properties, two shopping centers and several medical building properties in the area. The company partnered with Foutch Bros. to redevelop the Equitable building in downtown Des Moines from office to residential. The group is also involved in the redevelopment of Two Ruan Center.

“We really found Des Moines to be a strong market with great people,” wrote Aaron Mesmer, executive vice president, development and acquisitions for Block Real Estate Services, in an email.

Both Block Real Estate Services and Score Development are involved in the redevelopment of Westowne Center at 1404 22nd St. in West Des Moines.

“We see a lot of resemblance between the two centers,” Lipovac wrote in an email. The Westowne Center, which is anchored by Floor & Décor, has undergone a multi-million facelift, and many of its previously empty storefronts have been filled.

Lipovac wrote that a similar renovation is planned at Haymarket Square.

Plans include modernizing the center to “create a more vibrant shopping atmosphere by adding new retail and restaurant buildings to an oversized parking field,” Lipovac wrote. In addition, the groups hope to bring new tenants to the center, which is about one-fourth of a mile north of Merle Hay Mall.

“There are plenty of things that we can change about a property, but most important to us is what we cannot change about a property, such as population density, traffic counts, and interstate access,” Lipovac wrote. “The Merle Hay corridor and Haymarket Square check all of those boxes, which is what attracted us to this opportunity.”

Hubbell Realty Co. will manage the Haymarket Square property for Block Real Estate Services and Score Development.