Caribou Coffee, Einstein Bros. coming to Westdale

CEDAR RAPIDS - The coffee and bagel scene in the Corridor is about to get a new player.

Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels will open a store in December at 2870 Edgewood Rd. SW on the perimeter of Westdale mall.

Edgewood Partners is building the 6,080-square-foot building and plans to lease the remaining half to another tenant.

The chain will sell specialty coffee, fresh bagels and sandwiches, according to store listings. The Cedar Rapids location will be the company's sixth store in Iowa.

Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels operates a store in Waterloo and will open a venue later this year in Dubuque.

As a new Tru by Hilton takes shape at Westdale, John Frew, president of Frew Development Group, is hoping to recruit a 'sit-down” restaurant next to the four-story hotel.

Frew, commenting after a 'topping off” event in June, said a number of potential tenants for the redeveloped mall site have been waiting to see if the hotel became a reality.

'They want to see the hotel,” Frew said. 'We have lots next to the hotel on the Williams Boulevard side that are very important to the overall development.

'We would like to see a restaurant that can offer breakfast, lunch and dinner to the guests at the hotel.”

Frew said the 2017 construction season, the fifth year for the $90 million redevelopment project, will see completion of the 82-room hotel as well as several other projects.

The Cedar Rapids City Council recently voted to allow a $2.75 million, third-party loan for Denver, Colo.-based Frew Development to complete remodeling of the former Von Maur building and other site work.

Lisa Rowe, vice president of Frew Development and Westdale general manager, said the first floor of the Von Maur building will be delivered next month to national retailers Ross Dress for Less and the Shoe Dept. Encore. The entrances to the stores will face Edgewood Road SW.

Rowe said Frew Development is working to sign tenants for the upper level of the building, with entrances facing Williams Boulevard SW. The building was gutted and escalators were removed to create two separate floors for tenants.

Rowe said construction is progressing rapidly on an 18,339-square-foot building near the 29th Avenue SW entrance for PetSmart. The pet-supply chain expects to take delivery of the building and open for business later this year, she said.

Three more years of construction at Westdale is likely, Frew said, as letters of interest from potential tenants transition to signed leases.

'We are negotiating these LOIs for 2018 construction and delivery,” he said. 'Getting a lease signed with a national tenant can take more than a year.”

A two-story, 34,000-square-foot building is planned for the space between J.C. Penney and the former Von Maur building, Frew added.

'It is possible that it will be a single-tenant building with one floor facing east and the other west,” he said. 'We also have the potential for four new buildings west of Younkers.”