Conrad native and Class of 2014 BCLUW alum Conner Ubben has been something of a serial entrepreneur in the Des Moines metro since he graduated from Northwestern College, and he sees his latest venture in downtown Marshalltown as a homecoming and an opportunity to spread his portfolio into the area where he spent his formative years.

Ubben, 30, and his business partner Mark Braun, a former Amazon coworker who originally hails from Pella, are the co-owners of Half Price Appliance at 116 E. Church St., which officially opened for business on Saturday morning inside the old General Store Pawn Shop building. He said the idea for the store presented itself through the Amazon delivery company they already run when he and Braun purchased a few auction trailers full of appliances and began looking for a place to sell them when their REALTOR ®, Madi Carlson, found a spot on Hubbell Avenue in Des Moines.

“That took off. That was pretty much a year ago on the dot,” he said before explaining the rationale of opening a second location. “That was a big part of it, just being from Conrad and all, we were like ‘It’d be cool to do something closer to home vs. a little further away.’ We looked at a bunch of markets like Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Omaha, a bunch of different places.”

Bridger Claassen, a Garwin native and GMG graduate who now resides in Baxter, will be managing the store in Marshalltown, and the opening comes at an opportune moment with the recent closure of Pentz Appliance and the fact that the former General Store Pawn Shop building had been closed for some time.

“I’ve had a ton of people message me from back home. It’s been kind of cool to see that. I’m sure I’ll see some of those guys here soon and everything, but it’s nice to offer discounted (products),” Ubben said.

He noted that the vast majority of the appliances are brand new with a warranty, and a few are customer returns with minor scratches and/or dents.

“A lot of them are just overstock, maybe last year’s model, so a lot of them have nothing wrong with them. Every once in a while, we get something that’s got a little issue that we fix up, but that’s pretty rare,” Ubben said.

The owners have also purchased a warehouse in Grinnell to manage their supply. In addition to the appliance store, Ubben and Braun own Red-E-Bins dumpster service (which is currently for sale), the Amazon delivery company and mini-storage units in Des Moines.

“I think we’ll keep going, but this thing has been working really well, too. Our goal is to open a couple more of this year in different communities. Marshalltown will be a great spot to see how it does in this size of town,” he said.

The store will be closed on Sundays and Wednesdays and open all other days with the following hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays. To learn more, visit https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586475994403.