Ames’ north side has shopping available at Wal-Mart, Cub Foods and North Grand Mall, but now a smaller community-oriented area, the Northern Lights Center, is sprouting at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Wheeler Drive.

The center has a strip mall with businesses such as the Video Place, China Buffet, The Meeting House, Giangelo’s, Nikki Nails and Edward Jones Financial Consulting. Dairy Queen, Subway and a Swift Stop Phillips 66 also are located in the area.

“Although we consider Dairy Queen, Subway and Swift Stop part of the Northern Lights family, those businesses own their own property separate from the center,” said Dave Klatt, manager of Northern Lights Center.

At one point, Klatt said Lowe’s, 120 Airport Road, was interested in purchasing the current Northern Lights area, but the proposal was refused by the city and nearby residents.

“A smaller kind of commercial development has been planned there for a long time,” said Brian O’Connell, director of planning and housing for the City of Ames. “However, the scale was to be more community- or neighborhood-oriented.”

The City of Ames has been planning development of the area for 15 to 20 years but waited until recently to take action because investors were needed to fund the activity.

“Northern Lights has developed at a pretty rapid pace which is ironic since it sat vacant for so long and was slow in coming,” O’Connell said.

Northern Lights is about 2 years old, but it still has some unoccupied commercial sites available.

Klatt said another building currently is under construction, and one more will begin construction in the fall.

“After we are done with all of the buildings, the center will total about 50,000 square feet of commercial space,” he said.

Northern Lights also is a residential area with eight apartment complexes and 28 town houses.

Business operators said the nearby residents are not their primary consumers.

“Our customers come from all over the community, mainly because of our tanning business,” said Erica Killam, manager of the Video Place, 823 Wheeler St. “However, having apartments located so close really helps out our business a lot.”

With the center located near Cub Foods and Wal-Mart, customers have the opportunity to shop at larger convenience stores and smaller independent businesses in the same trip.

Mark McCann, assistant store manager of Cub Foods, 3121 Grand Ave., said the center’s location has not affected his business yet, but he said he likes having the center across the street.

“I don’t believe it has had a big impact on our business, but it is new and fairly undiscovered still,” McCann said. “When you stop to remember that it was merely a cornfield before, you can see that [the Northern Lights Center] is bound to be a help to our business.”