Micro Center needs to come to Des Moines / Ankeny, Iowa!!

cjmcgovern

The nearest Micro Center from Des Moines, Iowa is in Overland Park, KS, south of Kansas City, and/or up north in St. Paul, MN next to Minneapolis (each over 3 hours away!). The Des Moines, IA metro sits directly between these two locations via the I35 corridor; which stretches from Minnesota to Texas. The Des Moines metro contains 700k potential shoppers, with several hundred thousand more in nearby counties, that would LOVE to be able to locally shop a tech store like Micro Center. We have NO on-premises tech options other than a handful of Best Buy stores, which is ridiculous, considering the fact we are becoming known as the "Silicon Valley of the Midwest". We have a massive Facebook / Meta data farm in Altoona (another good location for MC), Microsoft offices, a new Amazon distribution hub, Apple, Wells Fargo, Principal Insurance, and now Tesla is coming to town as well. Etc. etc. Micro Center is missing a MASSIVE opportunity to dominate the market here; and MC supply lines are already established along I35 for Minnesota and Missouri. My suggestion is Ankeny, IA in particular, in the northern metro of Des Moines, as we have recently opened a Costco this month off of I35, at exit 94, (north side of Ankeny toward Ames, IA [ISU]) and have a copious amount of space for commercial development next door (some is taken, some is NOT). This would be an ideal location for Micro Center, as it would serve the Des Moines metro, as well as Ames, IA, which sits twenty miles to the north - the home of 32k college students at Iowa State University. LOOK on Google Maps for the new Ankeny Costco and the surrounding development area, and you will see what I mean. Thanks!

Ian

Greetings. We don't have any plans as of yet, but that doesn't mean it can't happen! We do love your suggestion, so we will send this over to our real estate team!

alphacmptr

@Ian , I stumbled across this post after hearing the recent announcements that microcenter is expanding to 3 new locations. I have to agree with @cjmcgovern there is a huge market of potential customers in Iowa. I have made 2 trips down to the Overland Park, KS store and loved it. However attempting to justify the cost of driving approximately 3 hours down and 3 hours back is hard to do as much as I would like. As cjmcgovern mentions there are plenty of possible places to build a store in Des Moines or one of the surrounding towns. The amount of business that could be done in the Des Moines area is a huge potential. The "Silicon Valley of the Midwest" needs a microcenter to support the vast amount of people that love everything tech. I have mentioned to many friends and colleges over the years how amazing it would be to have a microcenter in or around Des Moines. One positive in the Midwest currently is there is quite a bit of retail space that is going unused as companies have downsized or moved due to less demand for their products. There is a nice spot on the south side of Des Moines off of highway 5 and highway 65/69 that has a ton of parking and a nice sized building that is not being used currently.

I know you had mentioned that you had sent cjmcgovern's suggestion to the real estate team, if you could follow up and see if there has been any potential movement on a possible store in Iowa even. I see a huge opportunity for microcenter to become really the only player in town.

Ian

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/48967#Comment_48967

No plans at the moment, however, we do see quite a few requests for a location in Iowa!

alphacmptr

Glad to hear you see quite a few requests for an Iowa location,

Hopefully someday we will get a location in Iowa.

Spratt

I would want one towards the middle of Iowa, maybe like Iowa city or something. It would be less of a drive for me to drive across the state. It would be nice to have one near the Mississippi though.

NeoMatrixJR

I also would like to vote for a location in Des Moines! I've been down to the Overland Park location twice (probably a 3rd this weekend!) I had someone pick up my i5 from the MN store and ship it to me. I need a new PSU. We certainly don't have anyone here that caries SFX 4.0 PSUs around here! I'm debating buying one at Overland Park next weekend while we're in KC...but then I have no way to return it if I have a problem with it so I'm probably going to have to spend $50 more with Amazon :( PLEASE BUILD HERE! There's no good alternatives!

mikemc69

We definitely need a Microcenter in the Des Moines/Ankeny area, preferably Ankeny! There is a big market for it here with all the current tech and insurance companies. 

alphacmptr

bumping this post again as i have seen in various social media groups i am a part of the request for a microcenter in Iowa.

PaulL

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/56285#Comment_56285

Thank you for your continued support, Alpha! We are currently working on expanding as much as we can :) I will bump this to our real estate team to let them know that we are still needed in Iowa.