Dead Malls Episode 12 - Lindale Mall 

Lindale has been struggling, but it's not dead (yet). Thanks for the historical photo comparison. Very cool to see.

I love the palm trees.🩷🌴 I love the colors.💛🌈 I love the name Lindale.💜 I love the waterfall.🧡

Cedar Rapids is far too large to have no thriving mall. It’s sad that the two malls in the area are on their way out.

So sad. One of my earliest memories would have been around 1967 or 68 when I got to ride an elephant in the parking lot of the mall. I also remember some machines that made plastic dinosaurs. As I got older, I grew up running around this mall in the early 70's when it was open air. We lived nearby and we would cut through Cedar Memorial Cemetery and up a scary hill to access the mall parking lot. I still cannot believe our parents would just let us run lose like that. The Sears was a massive store and we always went there for our Garanimals school clothes. We went to Fanny Farmer for the Candy cigarettes. We went downstairs to the waterbed store and Alfalfas deli. It was great fun to go to Kresges and go downstairs to the photo booth and see how many we could squeeze in. Pier 1 was there and at that time they were known as the weird store that sold odd worldly goods and interesting chocolates. It was the only mall for many years until Westdale came along. Now Westdale is gone and looks like Lindale is about to see the same fate. Sad because Cedar Rapids will be left without a mall.

I was at Lindale Mall today. It appears to be doing great. I counted maybe 7 empty stores. They redesigned the food court, there's 3 slots and they're all occupied.

Hey I just wanted to say thank you so much for visiting the mall that I Still love today. I do agree that Lindale Mall is slowly falling short on things. Which is very sad, considering that I used to love to go here on the weekends all the time before COVID hit. I enjoy watching your videos of these, but not just that, you also give us a brief history of these malls and their background stories. How they started and how they declined during their life time. Keep up the good work!

since I was not born in Iowa I don’t really know the state of Iowa and I got obsessed with Younkers and a went to their website many times to find good clothing I feel bad for the malls in Iowa because due to coronavirus and you are really aesthetic and I do slowed and reverb songs now you can use them because you have permission to use it thank you and have a good day

Lindale Mall is thriving. Went to film the elevators and it was busy as hell.

I was born in Cedar Rapids in 1971 and lived there until 1984, so I remember Lindale as an open-air mall (then called Lindale Plaza) and was still around when it was enclosed. There used to be a Kresge's store, which I have dim memories of because I was only 5 or 6 years old when it closed. It was subdivided into several storefronts, and its lower level became "Lindale Lane." That was essentially the first phase of what would become the transformation to the fully enclosed Lindale Mall circa 1980. The decline of so many mid-sized enclosed regional shopping malls in recent years (and the redevelopment of some of them--including Westdale--into open-air "town centers") has made me feel nostalgic for the Lindale Plaza of my childhood.

Your dead mall videos are really great. I really love them.

Imagine a food court being deserted completely with restaurants closing out because of a stupid fight lol

Hey there, I just came over your channel here on youtube and want to mention what great work youre doing here. Great footage, research and quality of the whole content in general. Coming from southern germany (where most of the malls are doing well so far) I am very interested in the whole dead mall thing & retail & consumer society in the United States beginning after WW2. So from this perspective i am so glad that people like you deliver high quality content on a regular basis. Thank you so much !!

Keep up the good work! May I suggest the sycamore mall in Iowa city.

The issue with Lindale is not the mall per se but retail in general. Two of its anchors filed for bankruptcy and are no longer in existence (Younkers and Sears). Hard to recover from that.

Wow. Bell, Aces and Sal doesn't do the pictures of the past, standing right where you are standing. Kind of like a sense of time travel.

The mall is still somewhat busy during the day and has had somewhat of a recovery after covid as well as more businesses in the area. Food court has more business there and a Planet Fitness also opened up in lindale mall

Thanks for this video! Anyone remember the tv advertising jingle for the mall from the mid-1970s: "you're gonna find... what you're looking for... at Lindale". A search for that brought me here. Haven't found the ad yet though.

Nice history of the mall, and nice video.

I really like the enclosed roof that goes over the original top of the open air center. Gives it a cool two level affect.

I went back in May 2022 and it looked much Fuller and the Food court had more Restaurants in it

If I remember right at one point it even had a pet store in the basement level. I can barely remember it.

nice news feature insert also.

Looks like a really nice mall. Unfortunately the loss of the 2 anchors is going to be very tough to recover from.

Like all these dead mall videos, this makes me sad. This one in particular because of my close personal connection to this mall. I was the last manager of the Sam Goody store that closed there in early 2006. Before that I spent a lot of time here with friends in high school, even had my senior pictures taken at this mall. Had a lot of car work done at the Sears Auto center. Bought my wife a pair of earrings for our first Christmas together from the Zales at this mall. Purchased a Darth Vader lightsaber from the Spencer’s. Still have the lightsaber. Not the wife though.

When i went back in May 2022 The CBD store had alot of people in it

Such a great big place and yet so much of the fun stuff to do around here has slowly gone away. West Dale is history, Lindale feels like its on its way out, Planet X is now a crafts store... So much potential. I wish someone would open up a place like Planet X again.

Great episode!

Nice video. One thing - the photo at 13:20 is the Younkers at Westdale Mall. The terracotta pattern on the floor is a dead-giveaway.

In the basement right side has Voc rehab tha helps people with disabilities finding jobs.

I haven't been to Lindale in over a year, not since before the pandemic, so unless it's been closed off since I was last there, one part of the mall you missed in this video is the second downstairs area near the center court. IIRC a long time ago it was a circular corridor that looped back around upon itself, but now most of it has been blocked off. Last time I was down there, it was nothing but military recruitment offices.

It looks like the Younkers space is about to be filled, I don't know with what yet.

It has been years since I went to Lindale last time I was there it was almost full.

The others wouldn't even mention the fight. Or even find out about it unless googled, let alone include a video. Happy New Year. May the end of this year be the end of covid 19.

Can we get a update

So they practically close down a mall over one fight. They'd do that in my mall too. Let them kill eachother like they want to.

All the malls are dead its a past thing now!

I like how you film this mall yet know nothing about it besides Wikipedia

Lindale was far from ever being dead westdale on the other hand

Did you talk to the Mall Manager? She ain't bad.