As Von Maur departs, developers look to reinvent Sycamore Mall

Iowa City's aging Sycamore Mall is seeking to reinvent itself.

Mall officials and Shive-Hattery Architects-Engineering, the agency Sycamore Mall officials hired to help with the redesign, envision the new and improved mall will have lots of social spaces for events and people to congregate, said Mark Seabold, an architect with Shive-Hattery.

Consumers now have the ability to shop from home, so Sycamore Mall needs to offer something more, he said. Shive-Hattery is working on concepts and layout schemes that it is showing off to "see who bites," Seabold said.

"Those schemes will morph into a design," he added.

The final concept could include tearing down parts of the building to offer more open space or accentuating other areas.

"It will be less of a mall and more of a marketplace," Seabold said.

Kerry Sanders, Sycamore Mall general manager, said no timeline has been set for the project, but officials would like to move fairly quickly. The mall also is in talks with new tenants, he added.

The mall, which opened in 1969, is not the only Corridor mall hoping to remake itself — Lindale Mall will be expanding to offer new shops and restaurants, while Westdale Mall will be receiving a $90 million makeover that will turn the partially empty, closed-in space into an outdoor commercial and residential center.

Von Maur, Sycamore's anchor store, will open July 27 in a new, bigger space at Iowa River Landing in Coralville — a hurdle Sanders said is viewed more of as an opportunity.

"We hate to see any tenant leave," Sanders said. "But when one door closes, another opens up."