Westdale Mall

Address: 2600 Edgewood Road SW, Cedar Rapids, IA, 52405

Hours:

10:00 - 21:00 ( Mon - Sat )  12:00 - 18:00 ( Sun )  

About

Westdale Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The two-level mall on the southwest side of Cedar Rapids is one of the city's two enclosed malls, along with Lindale Mall on the city's northeast side. In recent years, Westdale has taken on some characteristics of a dead mall as one of its four anchor stores and an estimated 60 percent of inline stores have been vacated as of July 2007.

History

Planning and construction

Plans for Westdale Mall were first announced on March 29, 1972. Original plans called for a 560,000-square-foot (52,000 m²) mall with two or three anchor stores and 30 to 50 smaller stores on 66 acres of land. Later that year, developer Ernest W. Hahn of The Hahn Company acquired the mall's property from Midwest Development of Cedar Rapids and Dial Realty of Omaha, Nebraska. In 1974, Hahn asked the Cedar Rapids City Council to rezone an additional 21 acres of land from residential to commercial use. An organization of citizens known as "Taxpayers for Sensible Planning" opposed the rezoning, claiming that construction of a larger mall would have a severe impact on existing businesses in the Cedar Rapids area. Despite the opposition, the City Council approved the rezoning by a 4-1 vote on May 22, 1974. The recession of 1974 delayed the start of construction until May of 1976 and a seven-week electricians' strike delayed the mall's opening to October 4, 1979.

Despite the construction problems and layoffs in Cedar Rapids' manufacturing sector during the recession of 1980, Westdale Mall was at 93 percent capacity with 114 stores by the beginning of 1981. Westdale attracted shoppers from counties throughout eastern Iowa and surrounding states, including cities such as Davenport and Waterloo that already had enclosed malls.

What better way get in shape! Westdale Mall is never too cold or too hot. Westdale Mall doors open each day at 7:00am Monday-Saturday and 10:00am on Sundays. For more information, please call (319) 396-0740.