Marketplace at Clinton: Hole-y Retail, Big Box!
It’s a story familiar across America. A big-box retailer closes its door and leaves a large, dark windowless-building along a major thoroughfare.
It’s a story familiar across America. A big-box retailer closes its door and leaves a large, dark windowless-building along a major thoroughfare. The situation is particularly challenging for smaller and mid-size communities like Clinton, Iowa (pop.25,719).
Marketplace at Clinton is a model for breathing life back into an unleased building. A bland, monolithic former Target store was reconfigured into a Buffalo Wild Wing restaurant, Rue 21 retail store, Hometown Mattress, Shoe Sensation and DuTrac Community Credit Union. You now see a colorful entrance with outdoor seating as you drive along the busy Lincoln Highway.
The major structural challenge was to provide multiple new entryways in the exterior concrete block walls that were not originally designed to have openings. Retail tenants desire large storefront openings to increase visibility and high parapets for signage.
Beyond exterior facade and interior renovations, new traffic flows made parking close to this destination a reality.
With a $1.3 million investment, Markplace at Clinton is again a vibrant destination. Interior and exterior improvements accommodated multiple tenants who are thriving. Demising considerations, interior renovations, and exterior facade modifications were challenges that inspired new ideas that brought a dead mall back to life.
Follow the series:
- Back from the Dead: Breathing Life into Large, Empty Retail Spaces
- Marketplace at Clinton: Hole-y Retail, Big Box!
- Paul’s Discount Store: Raise the (New) Roof
- Mall Anchor Sinks
- 911: Resuscitating a Dead Mall
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