The first brand new store at Shops at Marshalltown had a grand opening on Friday.

That morning, roughly 130 people waited outside for the doors of Five Below, a national discount store, to open.

Glen Kitto, the director of construction for Reserve Development, the owner of Shops at Marshalltown, said Five Below did have a soft opening on Thursday and was happy with the turnout.

“I thought it was tremendous,” he said. “I think the city is ready, and there is pent-up demand for more good shopping options.”

Mayor Mike Ladehoff had not yet been to Five Below when interviewed by the T-R, but he was very happy the community had gotten a new retail option.

“I’m looking forward to more stores so people do not have to drive out of town to find what they are looking for,” he said. “My daughter and her friends have to go to Ames, so this will help quite a bit.”

According to Kitto, the space Five Below occupies was completely gutted “to the walls and rafters.”

“Effectively, it was a brand new retail build,” he said. “There are new walls, new air conditioning, a new roof. Everything is brand new, and that will be the case for all of the tenants we are putting in.”

The next two stores to open at Shops at Marshalltown will be Burlington and TJ Maxx. Kitto estimates they will open within a couple weeks of each other in the middle of August.

“Shoe Sensation will also open a new location at the end of July,” he said.

Burlington is one store Ladehoff is particularly looking forward to.

“It is amazing the amount of things they have that interest me, and from what I understand, for clothing, they carry big and tall, which we do not have in Marshalltown,” he said. “I have had three or four people tell me they look forward to staying here to buy clothes that fit them instead of going to Des Moines.”

As work continues transforming the building from an interior mall to a more modern shopping shopping center, crews are also busy on the exterior. The parking lot in front of Five Below was completely smooth, free of cracks and pot holes, and a crew was working on the parking lot between the mall and Kwik Star on Friday.

“The western parking lot will be redone by the end of the summer,” he said.

Kitto added that Shops at Marshalltown will also be a host for RAGBRAI in July. People bringing campers will be able to use the parking lots for their overnight stay in Marshalltown.

“We are excited to be delivering new spaces,” he said.

The facility that holds Shops at Marshalltown, formerly the Marshalltown Mall, had fallen into disrepair during the past few years under the ownership of Kohan Retail Investment Group of New York. In addition to severe neglect of the parking lots, Kohan failed to pay utility bills, and the electricity was shut off in November 2023. When Reserve Development purchased the property in January 2025, the bill had not yet been paid, but the new owner was intent on starting the work of bringing the building back to life.

The progress on the facility has been something that Ladehoff said people are excited about.

“I think it was such a dead space,” he said. “It was not looking good, and people would see this somewhat abandoned building in the city limits and it put a damper on them. Seeing this type of investment and the excitement about having more shopping opportunities for Marshalltown is really good.”

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Contact Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.