Hy-Vee reaches 2-year agreement with City of Des Moines over downtown business hours

DES MOINES, Iowa — After years of fluctuating hours, Hy-Vee’s downtown grocery store will have set hours of operation, at least for the next two years. Monday the Des Moines City Council reached an agreement with Hy-Vee and the developer behind the project 420 Court, LLC.

The city council voted unanimously to approve the minimum hours Hy-Vee’s downtown location must be open to not be in violation of their agreement. The minimum hours the store can be open are Monday – Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (8-7 p.m. during Daylight Savings), Saturday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. According to Tina Pothoff with Hy-Vee, starting Tuesday the grocery store will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday to Sunday.

Currently the store is open 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. after a series of adjustments without notice to the city. The location opened in 2017 with regular hours of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

“It means so much to me because I get my prescriptions here,” downtown resident Bonnie Harrold said.

Harrold requires a mobility scooter to navigate from her home to the store, similar to Mike Jones who uses a cane to walk to the store from his nearby home due to vision impairment.

“When they keep changing the hours it’s really hard to figure out of if the store will be open and you should make the trip out,” Jones said.

Despite the new hours, young professionals like Adam Seversen said he’ll still have to get creative to do his grocery shopping during the week.

“I noticed when the restricted hours started I really had to rework my schedule a bit to get my shopping down. As we’re standing right now I left work early today so I can swing by and get my shopping done before six or seven when they close because I shop a little later,” Seversen said.

Harrold worries the latest agreement foreshadows what to come.

“I’m afraid they’re eventually going to close it down,” Harrold said.

City Councilman Josh Mandelbaum doesn’t see that happening.

“First of all, the way the city structured incentives, there’s ten years on the incentives left. So, if they’re walking away from ten years of incentives left we would then use those to bring someone else in,” Mandelbaum said after the meeting. “The ideal world is we want Hy-Vee to be successful downtown, we want to make this work. That’s part of the reason we came to an agreement on these hours and we’ll move forward with that.”

After two years under the newly approved hours, Hy-Veen would be required to revert back to the original 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. schedule.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com.