The Younker Brothers Department Store is a seven-story commercial style building located on Walnut Street in Des Moines, Iowa. Designed by the architectural firm Liebbe, Nourse & Rasmussen and beginning construction in 1899, the building rose 138 feet above the ground. It served as the flagship store for Younkers, a company founded in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1856. The department store moved to this location in November 1899, and the building eventually housed a tea room that opened in 1913 and was replaced in 1927.
As a significant piece of local history, the building installed the first escalator in Iowa, known as the "electric stairs," in 1939. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. While the downtown location eventually closed in 2005, the Younkers brand officially closed in August 2018.
In 2014, a fire caused the collapse of the building's upper floors during a renovation project that intended to create 120 apartments and retail space. Following the fire, the Alexander Company announced plans to restore the western half of the building. These plans include renovating the historic tea room, which was spared by the fire, and creating 60 apartment units alongside 14,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
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