Some Des Moines’ retailers are quietly going upscale.

Davenport-based department store chain Von Maur completed a multimillion-dollar renovation at its Valley West Mall location, bringing in luxury goods, including Kate Spade handbags and Cole Haan shoes, in time for last year’s holiday shopping season.

The Shops at Roosevelt, located on 42nd Street just north of Interstate-235, have added two new gourmet restaurants in recent months: The Drunken Goat and La Mie. Both offer high-end food. La Mie’s pastry chef trained in Paris.

And in the most recent development, builders are currently at work on a new collection of trendy shops, service businesses and two restaurants in West Des Moines at the northwest corner of 128th Street and University Avenue.

Anglo International has built one of the biggest jewelry stores in the state there. Dan Vuong, who owns Chinese restaurants in Johnston and Waukee, recently opened The Belwood French Bakery and Café, which features Parisian-style baked goods, including pastries, made fresh daily.

Granite City Food & Brewery, a restaurant chain based in St. Louis Park, Minn., is expected to open an outlet on the corner by August. Other businesses at the four-building site so far include b.u., which sells trendy women’s clothes, and Styleworks Salon.

The concentration of wealth and high-paying jobs in that area of West Des Moines is the main attraction for developers and business owners at the new site, which doesn’t yet have a name that everyone involved in the project agrees upon.

“This is going to be a hot location,” said Julie Christiansen, who co-owns b.u. with Kris McVicor.

The site is close to the so-called Medical Mile, home to physician offices, clinics and potentially two new hospitals. The Des Moines Golf and Country Club is less than a mile away, as are several upscale neighborhoods, some of which are still under construction.

“There are 140 doctors in the Iowa Clinic building alone,” said Douglas Siedenburg, owner of the Siedenburg Group, which is developing a two-story building that will be used for office and retail space on the property. “It’s a very upscale demographic.”

RBC Dain Rauscher Inc., the stock brokerage, has agreed to lease 12,000 square feet of office space on the second floor of Siedenburg’s project. There is room for seven retailers or service businesses on the ground floor, Siedenburg said. Ideally, a delicatessen, a coffeehouse and a high-end women’s clothing store would occupy the ground-floor space, he said.

“A lot of companies are interested in this part of town,” said Scott Miller, whose company, 12851 University LLC, owns the building where Anglo is housed. Anglo occupies half of the structure, and Miller is currently talking with businesses about filling the remaining 8,500 square feet. “What we’re looking for in our project are tenants who are upscale,” he said.

Both the Shops at Roosevelt’s La Mie and The Belwood are expanding sales of their baked goods. La Mie has recently begun selling its pastries to Java Joes coffeehouse. The Belwood is now doing some catering and will take on more clients in the coming months, Vuong said. He already is planning a second location for The Belwood within the next year.

Vuong’s family owns similar cafes in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, Calif., among other locations. The Belwood’s kitchen is run by Tim Schoenman, who trained at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, an affiliate of the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu school.

“Des Moines has a lot of shops, but not a lot of high-quality stores,” Vuong said. “We need more like this.”