Mason City officials correcting lighting situation around Southbridge Mall parking lot after injury

MASON CITY — Mason City city officials are working to correct a lighting situation around the Southbridge Mall parking lot after one person was recently injured. Business leaders held a meeting with city leaders on Tuesday to express their concerns after a mall patron broke their wrist after falling due to the poor lighting.

City administrator Aaron Burnett says the light malfunction happened as part of the Willow Creek Riverwalk construction project.  “As we were doing some replacement of the panels in that parking lot, one of the conduits was actually in one of the panels that was up in the concrete, and so when it was removed, it actually turned off all the lights in that parking lot which has been met with a lot of frustration from several individuals, several organizations, businesses. We’re working as quickly as possible to get that resolved.”

Burnett says the city will have the situation resolved by Thursday.   “We do have the west lights on. The east lights should be fixed by Thursday and we’ll get those up and running. It was an unforeseen circumstance where there was really no way that we could have worked around that, but we are working as quickly as possible to get that resolved, and that will improve that situation quickly.”

The Southbridge Mall parking lot has been impacted in recent months by the Riverwalk project, when once completed will create a new usable park space in the downtown area that will also be connected to the bike trail project.