Whitey’s Ice Cream leaving downtown space due to building renovations

IOWA CITY - With considerable renovations underway at its downtown location, Whitey's Ice Cream shop will not reopen at 112 E. Washington St.

Scott Larson, retail general manager for Whitey's Ice Cream, said Wednesday that structural work on the 115-year-old building has reshaped the already small space, making it unfeasible to continue serving up cones at that location.

'That took quite a bit of our area that we were operating in and we just looked at it to see if we could work with that layout and it just so happened it was too difficult,” Larson said. 'We have decided not to renew our lease there.”

Whitey's has already removed equipment from the store to make way for structural renovations that began after New Years.

Property owner Mark Ginsberg, of M.C. Ginsberg Jewelers and Objects of Art, said work on the three-story building includes needed structural repairs to ensure its preservation.

Ground floor updates will be finished by mid-February while work on the second and third floors will be finished this summer, he said.

'We're just trying to bring the building back to its original condition,” he said. 'If Whitey's were to leave and we were able to utilize the building for one tenant, that's my desire.”

Ginsberg said the work aims to transform the top two floors into a mixed use office/residential space.

'It's going to be a pretty sexy space, these are old spaces that normally you'd find in Chicago or New York or San Francisco, not necessarily Iowa City,” he said. 'We're trying to preserve the historical significance and maintain that attraction to downtown Iowa City”

Both Ginsberg and Larson noted that, as Whitey's appears poised to leave the space they've occupied since 1994, the decision to move out is not a result of any bad blood.

Larson said officials are exploring possibilities for a new Iowa City location but nothing has been decided.

'We are not giving up on the Iowa City location as far as I know,” he said. 'Right now we don't have anything on the horizon.”