Iowa City's Sycamore Mall Closes

Iowa City's Sycamore Mall has been foreclosed upon by a lender.



In late October, the lender of the loan for Sycamore Mall, Wells Fargo Bank, filed a petition for foreclosure against CORE Sycamore Town Center, a company that owns Sycamore Mall.

According to records, as stated by thegazette.com, the company has failed to make most of its payments. It still owes $12 million of the original $13 million amount of the loan made by the bank in 2008. The final payment toward the loan was due in September.

The mall's General Manager Kirk White stated that the company believed it would be getting an extension on the loan and that Wells Fargo decided not to give the extension at the last minute and instead filed the petition.

White has issued a statement saying that the mall will find a new loan and that it will be fine. He mentioned a commitment letter from another institution, but the loan has not been finalized as of yet.

White also made a point of stressing that the foreclosure was not a result of nonpayment of the loan.

What could possibly be the case, though, is that CORE has not made enough payments and Wells Fargo is not pleased with the repayment rate of the loan, so they no longer want to keep working with CORE.

White does note that the foreclosure may have to do with the fact that Von Maur, the mall's major department store, closed. He stated that Wells Fargo may have questioned the future of the mall with the closing.



The property's value has gone down over $5 million as a result of the departure of the Von Maur department store.

Dan Childers is the attorney handling the foreclosure. He said that CORE is still able to buy back the property if the company is able to find financing. 
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