New construction work starts at Westdale

CEDAR RAPIDS - Construction has begun on a U.S. Bank branch at Westdale, the first new building in the $90 million Cedar Rapids redevelopment project.

Lisa Rowe, vice president/retail at Frew Development Group and Westdale general manager, on Thursday said additional construction during the next few months will include a 5,000-square-foot stand-alone Chick-fil-A restaurant, interior and exterior renovations to the JCPenney building, and a 12,000-square-foot multi-tenant building.

'The construction of the first new building at Westdale is a significant milestone,” Rowe said. 'Vertical construction is what people in the community have been longing to see since we started this project.”

Construction of the U.S. Bank building began on Feb. 9 and the office, which will be located on the second pad site north of the south Edgewood Road SW entrance, is expected to open this summer.

U.S. Bank is relocating because the building housing its branch at 2350 Edgewood Rd. SW was acquired in October 2010 by F&M Bank of Manchester, which has offices in northeast and downtown Cedar Rapids. F&M expects to open a branch at Westdale in November.

'Chick-fil-A hopes to start construction April 6 on its new free-standing restaurant,” Rowe said. 'It will be located on the first pad site north of the south entrance off Edgewood Road SW.”

Rowe said the recently completed initial phase of site work created eight development pads along Edgewood Road SW, All the sites are under contract and include new utilities, construction of a new Edgewood Road entrance and a portion of the new ring road that will provide access to future development.

'The 12,000-square-foot multi-tenant building will be constructed just south of the existing U.S. Bank building,” Rowe said.

Site development will continue this year with the creation of six new pad sites along Williams Boulevard SW and two pad sites at the corner of 29th Avenue and Edgewood Road SW. Rowe said the section of the ring road along Williams Boulevard SW will be relocated, additional utility work will be performed and sidewalks and landscaping will begin to take shape.

'We are working to bring a new water line all the way around the property,” Rowe said. 'It will eventually tie back into the water line at J.C. Penney, which will give us redundancy. It will allow us to reroute the water in the event of a problem and assure that we will continue to have water to the site.”

Frew Development Group of Colorado is redeveloping the 36-year-old Westdale, transforming the 72-acre former enclosed mall into a mixed-use area. When completed, Westdale will include retail, commercial, office, entertainment, residential, hotel, green space and connecting trails.

Rowe said Frew Development Group is working to sign leases with a number of retailers and other tenants,

'We have several 20,000-square-foot to 60,000-square-foot new-to-market tenants that we're continuing to work with,” she said. 'Some of these have been interested since Day 1, so there's significant interest and we're moving forward on those deals.

'We also have a list of specialty retailers that are ready to commit, but they're waiting to see who the co-tenant will be,” Rowe said. 'I think as soon as we sign a junior anchor deal, we're going to see a snowball effect and a lot of those smaller specialty retail leases will fall right into place.”