At the Edge of Cedar Rapids: Lindale Mall
Lindale Mall is the kind of place you drive to almost without thinking about it, sitting at 4444 First Avenue NE, where Cedar Rapids spreads out into big roads and parking lots, steady as the traffic.
The mall covers over 723,000 square feet of indoor shopping, with two floors full of national stores, local favorites, and whatever people do for fun between errands.
Collins Road brings about 30,000 cars a day past its main entrance, and the traffic lights along the road are set so that getting to Lindale feels more like being carried along than making a choice.
Inside, the air is kept at a steady, comfortable temperature like most Midwestern malls.
Von Maur is in the best spot as the last big department store, its escalators and quiet, carpeted floors giving a small reminder of what the mall used to promise.
Around it, about eighty businesses fill the hallways and nearby buildings: the familiar clothes stores like American Eagle and Bath & Body Works, fast-food places like Chick-fil-A, Five Guys, and Panda Express, the bright lights of Planet Fitness, and the steady work of Holley's Shop for Men, which has been helping Cedar Rapids men for many years.
The empty spaces of Sears and Younkers, which closed a long time ago, sit at the ends of the building as reminders of the past, while a planned Dick's House of Sport is listed on the directory as a future new addition.
Cornfields, Civic Doubt, and the Birth of Lindale Plaza
Before Lindale was a mall, it was an argument.
In the mid-1950s, the Des Moines department-store power Younkers decided that Cedar Rapids needed another outpost, ideally downtown, where the city's merchants could see it and, more to the point, be seen losing business to it.
Those merchants organized, lobbied, and scolded the city council, determined to keep the zoning of central land safely residential and the competition politely theoretical.
Younkers did what ambitious retailers of the era often did when downtown got territorial: it drove to the edge of town.
By February 15, 1956, it had joined hands with Sears & Roebuck to announce a new open-air shopping center in the northeast reaches of the city, on 40.8 acres about seven miles from the old commercial core.
Chicago developer Bernard Greenbaum & Associates signed on; architect David Cheskin drew up the modern lines. The council, despite the protests, rezoned.
By the fall of 1956, Cedar Rapids had committed itself to the postwar script: cars, parking lots, easy access off major roads.
Ground broke in September 1959 for what would be called Lindale Plaza, a project that promised a year-round festival of consumption where cornfields had recently handled that job just fine.
Grand Openings and Bishop Buffet: A Plaza of Firsts
Lindale Plaza was built quickly during a time of fast growth.
On September 1, 1960, eleven stores opened their doors for a preview: Seifert's ladies' wear, May's Drug, the local branch of Killian's East, and a large S.S. Kresge five-and-dime, among others.
Two weeks later, on September 15, the plaza held its official opening, now with twenty-three stores and full of important guests and excitement.
Iowa's governor, Herschel Loveless, showed up, along with Cedar Rapids' mayor, James Meaghan, and Miss Iowa 1960, who helped add some glamour to the event.
A three-story, 158,600-square-foot Younkers opened that day; Sears' two-story, 148,000-square-foot store opened soon after, on October 6.
These two stores stood at opposite ends of the center, which also included an Eagle Food Center and, soon, the Bishop Buffet, a cafeteria known for its comfort food that stayed open until 2003.
If Lindale showed the strength of new shopping centers, it also felt like a small, easy-to-walk town.
Shoppers wandered between Killian's East, Seiferts, and Kresge, took care of errands at May's Drug, and then went to Bishop Buffet for pie.
Sears and Younkers stayed the longest, open from the first year until they both closed in 2018, lasting longer than the idea of the department store itself.
Movie Nights, a Mini-Mall, and the Move Indoors
In the 1960s, Lindale Plaza got the usual things you would find in the suburbs, along with some special new places.
In July 1967, ABC-TriStates opened the Plaza Theatre, a one-screen movie theater built in the south parking area.
For twenty years, people walked past store windows on their way to see movies, from big traveling shows to disaster movies and early hits.
The theater closed in late 1987, which was not a big loss since bigger movie theaters were becoming more popular.
By the late 1970s, the open-air design that seemed new in 1960 started to feel uncomfortable during cold winters.
In 1977, Lindale tried something different by putting walls around its north-central entrance and calling it a small "Mini-Mall." Stores like Critchett Piano & Organ, Hansel Haus, The Smoker's Cove, Fanny Farmer Candies, Crazy Top Shop, The Country Cobbler, and a Merle Norman makeup studio opened there.
Shoppers now had a short but welcoming indoor walkway.
An even bigger and more costly change came next. In 1978, a $2 million project added a roof over the plaza and improved it, creating new store spaces at the entrances and along the main walkway.
Record Bar sold music, Pearls of the Orient sold gifts, and Flowerama, The Athlete's Foot, and Terra Art completed the new group of stores.
The plaza, once just a long row of shops open to the weather, was turning into a real mall.
Lindale Mall's Makeover: Food Court, New Floors, and Von Maur
By 1980, the transformation was finished. Lindale's Center Court added a food court with eight places to eat, such as Diamond Dave's Taco Company, Orange Julius, Taters & Toppings, and the Maid-Rite Shop.
Customers could now enjoy their meals without worrying about the weather. A small stage and two reflecting pools made the mall feel calm and welcoming, just like many malls at the time.
The entrances were rebuilt, the landscaping was improved, and the parking lots were repaved.
Inside, the mall had several floors, like a small city. An empty store and the old lower-level walkway were turned into Lindale Lane, which added nine shops.
The basement of Younkers became Lindale Square, bringing in twenty more stores.
The department store now had two floors and took up 105,600 square feet. By late fall 1980, the updates were finished, and Lindale Plaza officially became Lindale Mall, just as Westdale Mall opened across town.
In 1981, the mall changed its main store for the first and only time.
Petersen Harned Von Maur from Davenport took over the space left by Killian's East, which had closed. Its downtown Cedar Rapids store shut down in 1982. By 1989, the name was shortened to Von Maur.
Corporate Handoffs, Parking Deck, and Facelifts
Ownership of Lindale Mall changed hands from one big company to another as often as a bond pays out. For its first eight years, the plaza was owned jointly by Younker Brothers and Northwestern Life Insurance.
In October 1968, they sold the complex to General Management Corporation of Des Moines, which soon became General Growth Properties.
In 1956, this company opened Cedar Rapids' first strip mall, Town & Country, just a mile and a half to the south.
In 1984, as real-estate plans changed, General Growth sold Lindale Mall to the Equitable Life Assurance Society, which owned the property until 1998.
That year, Lindale Mall became part of a group of twelve malls bought by a partnership between Simon DeBartolo Group from Indianapolis and the Macerich Company from Santa Monica.
Simon would later take full ownership in 2012, after already managing a 2003 interior update that tried to keep the mall up-to-date in a world that now had large chain stores and, worryingly, online shopping.
Meanwhile, Lindale Mall kept growing.
A $15 million expansion and renovation, finished in 1997, added a parking garage with 500 spaces and a new north wing ending in the Terrace Food Court, a seven-restaurant, 500-seat upgrade to the mall's role as a place to eat lunch and hang out for teenagers.
By then, the complex covered about 767,000 square feet and had about ninety store spaces, like a small city under glass.
Spinoff, Renovation, and Anchor Loss at Lindale Mall
In 2014, Simon split off a group of what it called Grade B malls into a new company, the Washington Prime Group. Lindale Mall was one of the forty-four malls in this group.
By early 2015, Washington Prime had teamed up with Glimcher Realty Trust, showing that the once-strong business of renting out store space now needed more complex deals.
The mall's building, however, kept getting attention. A 2013 renovation changed the north side and built a row of shops along the main entrance, adding almost 30,000 square feet on both sides.
Chipotle opened in 2014, followed by US Cellular, Hurricane Grill & Wings, and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen.
Carter's, OshKosh B'Gosh, and Kirkland's helped fill out the west side. A separate Jared The Galleria of Jewelry opened on the northeastern edge in 2016.
Then the main stores started leaving. In 2018, Bon-Ton went out of business, and Younkers closed its Lindale store in August.
That summer, Sears closed too. About 246,000 square feet of space, or about a third of the mall, was left empty, and around 150 workers lost their jobs.
Von Maur was the only regular department store left.
When Washington Prime filed for bankruptcy in 2021, Lindale's value dropped from $44 million to $30 million after review, showing how much less people expected from it.
Kohan's Bet, Pretzels, and Mall in Slow Motion
Lindale Mall is still open, so this isn't a story about a mall closing, at least not right now.
In March 2023, Kohan Retail Investment Group, a New York company that buys malls that are having trouble, bought the property for $28.5 million.
The sale also included eight nearby places: the old Hy-Vee west of the mall, Jared's jewelry store, Five Guys, an escape room, Jo-Ann Fabrics in a former theater, plus some empty land and private roads.
By 2025, the mall and the surrounding area have about eighty businesses.
There are national chains like American Eagle and Bath & Body Works, food favorites like Arby's, Panda Express, Chick-fil-A, and Red Lobster, and local spots such as Holley's Shop for Men and Scoops Creamery.
Still, change keeps happening in small ways.
After almost eighteen years in the mall, Pretzelmaker closed its Lindale location in September 2025 and encouraged customers to visit its new drive-through on Blairs Ferry Road.
The news felt a bit like a neighbor moving out, not a disaster, but a reminder that the mall's sense of community can fade slowly, one cup of pretzel bites at a time.
Dick's House of Sport, Brownfields, and the Risk of Reinvention
If there's another chapter to this story, it might play out on artificial turf.
After sitting empty for years, the old Sears building is set to become a Dick's House of Sport, a large store with a year-round competition field where the auto bays used to be.
Reserve Development of Dallas, now doing business as Shops at Cedar Rapids, bought the building in January 2024 for $3.4 million.
The building was valued a bit higher and was contaminated enough to qualify for brownfield and grayfield incentives.
In early 2025, the Cedar Rapids City Council approved an incentive package and started a development agreement that will use tax-increment financing to help fund the project.
The plan was expected to create 110 full-time jobs, with construction starting in August 2025 and finishing by March 2026.
In the mall directory, Dick's House of Sport is already listed for a June 2026 opening.
Lindale Mall won't turn into a museum anytime soon. Its new owners hope it will become a mix of entertainment, fitness, and dining, taking over the role department stores once played.
Whether this is true reinvention or just a temporary fix is still uncertain, as the concourse still carries the faint smell of popcorn and new shoes.
