Ames Plaza

The plaza originally opened as a Giant Department store, which opened on March 15, 1966. The Giant Department store closed in Fall 1973. After the Giants' closure, a King's department store would open in its former space sometime between January and May 1974. In early 1974, a P&C supermarket was built/opened next to Kings. In July 1977, Beverage King opened and would later close in the early 1980s. Ames Department Store would take over the Kings in 1983. In late July 1990, the P&C supermarket would be replaced by the Grand Union supermarket after Grand Union acquired the store. Grand Union lasted less than 5 years and would close in the first half of 1995. In early December 1996, Ames announced it would be closing this location; it later closed in mid-February 1997. The plaza would remain vacant for a little over a year until being purchased by Amsource, which would use the former stores as a water bottling facility. Amsource would not remain in the space long and closed in early 2001 and later auctioned off its equipment on April 29th, 2001. The plaza would become fully vacant for a second time until it was purchased in 2007 by a church that demolished the plaza. The land is still empty as of August 2025, with the church using the former Ames road sign, and planning to build on the empty land