If you've driven Hickman Road past Alice's Road lately, you've probably noticed the same thing everyone else has: dirt, silt fencing, and heavy equipment on both sides of the street at once. It's easy to assume it's all one project, especially since both sites eventually plan to sell groceries, hardware, or a hot meal. It isn't. The two builds sit across the road from each other, come from two completely different development teams, and are running on two timelines that have almost nothing to do with one another.
One is Waukee Towne Center, the Target-anchored lifestyle development that's been years in the making and already has a national retail wish list attached to its name. The other is a proposed Walmart Supercenter that spent most of this year as an open secret before the city confirmed what it actually was. Knowing which is which matters if you're trying to figure out what's actually usable this fall versus what's still just a rendering.
The Corner You Already Know
Waukee Towne Center is the development most residents have heard about, mostly because Target has been open there since October 13, 2024. That store, at 900 SE Laurel Street, was the first piece of a 62-acre project developed by Pierson Companies at the Hickman Road and Alice's Road intersection, and it's still the only fully operating anchor on that side of the road. Around it, a handful of businesses are already running: Freddy's Steakburgers, Hyper Energy Bar, LOF Xpress Oil Change, and Olive Garden.
That's the entire list of what's actually open today. Everything else you've read about, the L.L. Bean, the Arhaus, the Hampton Social, is signed on paper but not built yet.
What's Signed But Not Open Yet
In late August 2026, Pierson Companies released its first wave of confirmed tenants for the next phase of Waukee Towne Center, and several of them will be new to Iowa entirely. L.L. Bean and The Hampton Social, which currently operates restaurants in Chicago and Nashville, are both making their state debut here. So are Game Show Battle Rooms, Noir Nail Bar, and The End Bar.
Here's how the announced square footage breaks down so far:
| Tenant | Approx. Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Marshalls | 23,600 sq ft | Also listed among businesses "opening soon" |
| Pottery Barn | 12,500 sq ft | First-to-market for this stretch of the metro |
| West Elm | 12,000 sq ft | Part of the same announcement batch |
| 30hop | 7,000 sq ft | Regional restaurant and entertainment concept |
| Williams Sonoma | 5,700 sq ft | Size confirmed in developer release |
| L.L. Bean, Arhaus, The Hampton Social, Game Show Battle Rooms, Noir Nail Bar, The End Bar | Not yet released | First-to-Iowa concepts, no confirmed footprint |
Add it up and the developer says this first tenant batch alone accounts for more than 100,000 square feet of retail, dining, and entertainment space, on top of what's already built around Target. Dutch Bros Coffee, Crisp & Green, and Jersey Mike's are also described as opening soon, though none of the releases attach a firm date to that phrase.
The full build-out is where the numbers get slightly fuzzy depending on which press release you're reading. Pierson's July 2026 announcement put the finished center at 355,000 square feet, while a separate WHO 13 report on the same project cited 335,000 square feet. Either way, the site's own developer materials point to a late spring 2027 grand opening for the whole thing. If you're circling a date on the calendar, that's the one to use, not the individual tenant openings that will trickle in ahead of it.
What's real right now, beyond Target, is the site itself. The plan includes a lake at the center of the development, described as 6 acres in the most recent coverage and 8 acres in earlier reporting, with a walk and bike path that ties into the regional trail system. An amphitheater and a winter ice rink are also part of the build, alongside summer play areas and fire pits. Construction on those amenities is happening alongside the retail buildings, so expect the site to look unfinished in patches well into next year even as pieces of it become walkable.
The Rumor Mill on the Other Corner
Now cross the street. On the north side of Hickman Road, at the corner with what's specifically labeled Northeast Alice's Road, a completely separate developer has been quietly moving a very different project through the city's approval process. For months, the only public information was that a combined retail and grocery store with a gas station was coming to a vacant lot near the existing Hy-Vee and Aldi. Nobody would say who. Speculation online landed on Sam's Club, Kroger, Albertsons, and Meijer, none of which currently operate a single Iowa location.
The mystery ended in early August 2026, when a staff report to Waukee's Planning and Zoning Commission confirmed the project as a 182,429-square-foot Walmart Supercenter, complete with a pharmacy, an automotive service center, and a fueling station with 10 pumps. The land belongs to developer Richard Hurd, and the project itself is being brought forward by Orange Development LLC, a firm based in Birmingham, Alabama, not by Pierson Companies or anyone connected to the Towne Center project across the street.
The city's rezoning process for the parcel started back in January 2026, and the council passed the zoning ordinance on April 20, 2026. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved the site plan itself in mid-August 2026. But the story doesn't end there. When the item reached the full City Council on August 17, 2026, council members tabled a resolution to formally approve that site plan, citing unanswered questions about the traffic the store would generate. No Walmart representative was in the room to respond, so the item got pushed to a future meeting rather than approved outright.
That's a meaningfully different status than the Towne Center project. Waukee Towne Center already has an anchor open, tenants signed, and a stated grand opening window. The Walmart site has a confirmed identity and approved zoning, but its site plan is still sitting in limbo pending a council vote that hasn't happened yet as of this writing.
What This Actually Means If You Live Here
If you're trying to plan around the construction on Hickman Road this fall, the practical takeaway is simple: treat these as two unrelated timelines. The Towne Center side has a real, dated target of late spring 2027 for its full opening, with individual restaurants and shops filling in before then on no fixed schedule. The Walmart side doesn't have an opening date at all yet, because it doesn't have final site plan approval yet. A traffic study tied to the project did confirm two access points along Hickman Road, both approved by the Iowa Department of Transportation, along with a right-turn lane requirement at the easternmost entrance, so even once approved, expect some intersection work before the doors open.
For day-to-day purposes, the useful distinction is this: if you want to know when you'll actually be able to shop at something new near that intersection, Target and its existing neighbors are it for now. Everything else, on both sides of the road, is still a matter of watching city council agendas and Pierson's own tenant announcements rather than a calendar you can circle today.
If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's actually happening in your own backyard before it shows up in a listing description or a real estate ad, that's exactly the kind of local tracking I do for clients buying and selling around Waukee. If you've got questions about how any of this growth might affect your street, your commute, or your home's value down the road, reach out through Adam Bugbee and I'll walk you through what I'm seeing.
