Mason City council starts discussions on Southbridge Mall future

MASON CITY — The City Council in Mason City last night held a workshop session to discuss the future of Southbridge Mall. The city took over ownership of the mall in May after terminating its relationship with a developer after that developer failed to make financial commitments to develop a hotel as part of the River City Renaissance project.

Mayor Bill Schickel says the city needs to get a better understanding on what the future may look like for the mall. “Should that be a recreation facility, should it be a family entertainment center, should it have things like bowling in there, what kind of space should be offered for retail? Also overall, what do we want that area to be, that district to be. The City Council will be looking at that. Once we get a good feel of that, we’ll go about the business of executing it.”

In the interim, the council recently approved soliciting requests for proposals for replacing the roof on the mall and placing a solar installation on the roof to help manage the energy costs at the mall and at the multipurpose arena. Schickel says that is a needed improvement.   “There’s a lot of room up top of that mall, so we can create a lot of energy there the way we have on the arena, the public library, our waterworks department. Two big goals can be fulfilled there. One is to reduce our energy costs, which are substantial in the mall there, and the other is the ability to put a new roof on the place. That roof has been in terrible, terrible shape for a long time. The federal incentives allow us to include things like the roof in our plan to convert that building to solar energy.”

Two new eating establishments, Gyro Place MC and Powder Street Pizza, recently opened in the mall.  The city in August announced that Kinseth Hospitality had executed a purchase agreement that outlines the process of constructing a $15 million extended stay hotel that would connect to Music Man Square via the downtown skywalk.