Web Design in Des Moines for the Shops and Offices Along the Skywalk

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Walk the second floor corridors downtown and a shop’s wall can show its name, because the City’s skywalk code keeps other advertising and signs out of corridors and bridges unless they are official skywalk signs or a name sign or directory the Skywalk Committee permits. Everything else a skywalk customer needs, from which bridge reaches the door to whether the corridor is still open at a quarter to ten, has to live on the website. Web design in Des Moines for a skywalk level business starts from that bare wall. Progression is a New York team that builds for Des Moines businesses remotely and comes in person for a working session on request.

A corridor wall that may carry your name and little else

A cafe on the skywalk level earns a name sign on the corridor sidewall, if the Skywalk Committee permits it. Everything a passerby might want to know, from the menu to the hours, has nowhere to go on that wall.

The wall carries the name, and the phone carries the rest. A customer who spots the sign pulls out a phone to learn what is inside, where the nearest bridge is and whether the door is open. The site has to answer all three before the customer has taken a step.

• Match the site’s name and logo to the sign the committee permitted.
• Put the building, the floor and the bridge in the first lines of the location page.
• State the business’s own hours on every page that mentions the shop.
• Name the street door for after hours.

Web design in Des Moines that starts with the skywalk code

The City’s skywalk code begins with a statement of purpose. Section 102-318 finds that a skywalk-level sidewalk system in the skywalk district lets pedestrians with or without physical disabilities move in an enclosed second story system protected from adverse weather and vehicles.

The same section says the system reduces pedestrian-vehicle conflicts, encourages more efficient use of public parking, promotes pedestrian travel downtown and encourages shopping and economic growth. Section 102-330(k), as amended by Ordinance No. 15,000 in 2011, then sets the rule on signs: no advertising or signs in a skywalk corridor or bridge other than official skywalk system signs the committee approves.

The exceptions are narrow. Store or building name signs or building directories may be permitted by the committee on corridor sidewalls, and temporary banners announcing a public event may be attached to the exterior of bridges with approval. No sign on adjacent property may be so similar to an official skywalk sign or graphics as to cause confusion.

Who decides?

The City’s Skywalk Committee, a sub-committee of the Urban Design Review Board, which makes decisions and grants variances to the skywalk codes.

What should a shop ask the building manager first?

What the committee has permitted for the storefront, before any photos for the site are shot.

What the corridor wall allows, and what the site carries instead

The table sets the code’s rules for the corridor against what a business’s website carries. The rules are as amended in 2011; confirm anything current with the committee.

The name sign and the photo that matches it

A photo of the storefront on the site should show the sign exactly as the committee permitted it, and the logo on the page should match.

• Use the permitted sign in the header photo.
• Match the logo’s colors and wording to the sign.
• Do not add promotions to the sign photo.
• Re-shoot the photo when the sign changes.

Building, floor and bridge, written in that order

A customer standing in a corridor needs the building first, the floor second and the bridge third. That order mirrors how they walk.

• Name the building in the first line.
• State the floor in plain words, such as the second floor.
• Name the bridge that reaches the door.
• Add the parking garage connection when there is one.

Route wording that never imitates an official skywalk sign

Describe the route in the business’s own words. Do not draw the official map, copy an official sign’s graphics or use their colors.

• Write the route as steps, not as a map.
• Use plain words for turns and landmarks.
• Leave out official sign colors and shapes.
• Ask the committee if a graphic looks close to an official sign.

Pricing a site for a skywalk level shop

A site with a location page, an hours page and a menu or services section sits in the ranges below. Pricing depends on scope and is set in the written proposal. Published prices are subject to change.

What Progression lists for a build

These are the fixed-scope prices on our website design and development page, shown as starting prices.

For shops, see retail store website design, and for the local search side, local SEO services.

Two sets of skywalk hours on the public record

Section 102-330(a), as amended in 2011, opens skywalk corridors and bridges to public pedestrian travel from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. seven days a week, with added or reduced hours the committee may approve. A 2023 resolution then approved a Uniform Amendment to the skywalk agreements, and the two texts differ.

The Uniform Amendment extends skywalk agreements to July 1, 2063, requires membership in the Skywalk Association, and delegates to that association the authority to request discretionary closures, which the Skywalk Committee considers. Any permanent change to the hours requires a further uniform amendment. The amendment is offered to every owner and comes back to the Council as owners sign, as the October 7, 2024 approval for the property at 666 Grand Avenue shows.

The plain advice: the site states the business’s own hours and the street door to use after the corridor closes, and never prints systemwide skywalk hours as fact. Building management confirms a corridor’s hours.

Who tells a business what its corridor’s hours are?

Building management. The code and the 2023 amendment set the framework, and each owner’s agreement decides which applies.

• Say the business’s own hours first and plainly.
• Add a line saying building management confirms corridor hours.
• Name the street door for any hour the corridor might be closed.
• Review the page when the building tells you its hours have changed.

Elevators and escalators keep the building’s hours

Section 102-330(a) says vertical access facilities are open during the regular hours of the building or business where they are located, but not beyond the hours of the corridors they serve.

A short note on the location page names the street entrance that works when the lobby is locked, and the hours the business itself controls.

• Name the street entrance and the street it faces.
• State the hours the business controls.
• Say that lobby hours belong to the building.
• Link the building’s own page when it has one.

Open to everyone while the corridor is open

Section 102-330(b) says that while a portion of the skywalk system is open, it is available to the general public without restriction, and no private owner may block an open portion. Subsection (g) allows a person with a disability, or a person training an assistive animal, to be accompanied by a service dog or assistive animal under control, and (h) allows wheelchairs and other power-driven mobility devices used by a person with a mobility disability.

Bicycles, skateboards, mopeds and roller skates are not allowed. The plain advice for a business is to describe the route from the nearest skywalk entrance in plain steps, say where the step free path is if the business knows it, and claim no accessibility standard the site has not been tested against. See our ADA compliant website design page for the site itself.

• Write the route as numbered steps.
• Say where stairs or elevators are, if known.
• Do not claim an accessibility rating the site has not earned.
• Update the route when the building changes.

Drinks stay inside the bar or the restaurant

Section 102-330(m) bars alcoholic liquor, wine or beer in a corridor or bridge while it is open for public travel. A skywalk level restaurant or bar should write its menu and to go pages so they never suggest a walk with a drink.

For restaurant sites, see our website for restaurants page. The wording on a skywalk shop’s menu is short: drinks are served inside, and to go orders are for food.

• Say that drinks are served and finished inside.
• Keep to go photos free of alcohol.
• Do not describe a corridor as a place to carry a drink.
• Ask the committee if a promotion could be read as an invitation.

Website design in Des Moines for offices one floor above the street

A professional office reached through the skywalk needs a visitor page that names the building, the floor, the nearest bridge and the parking garage connection. Web design in Des Moines, Iowa for such an office adds a contact form that asks how the visitor is arriving.

Visitors who arrive on foot from a bridge, by car into a garage or from the street each need a different sentence. The page gives all three, in plain words.

What does the contact form ask?

How the visitor is arriving, and whether they need the step free route. The answer lets the office reply with the right directions.

• Ask how the visitor is arriving.
• Give the garage connection in one sentence.
• Name the lobby hours if the office knows them.
• Confirm the building’s visitor sign-in rules with the building.

One building, two doors

A skywalk level shop has a door on the corridor and, in most buildings, a door on the street below. The site treats them as two doors with two sets of customers.

Which door does the listing show?

The one customers reach first. For most skywalk level businesses that is the corridor door, with the street door named as the after hours route.

Does the street door need its own page?

No. A short section on the location page does the job.

• Name both doors on the location page.
• Say which door is open when.
• Match the listing’s address to the door customers use most.
• Keep the photos for both doors current.

Before a skywalk shop’s site goes live

Eight items settle most of the work. The card lists them. For the state view, see our SEO company in Iowa page.

Frequently asked questions