CEDAR FALLS - Last year, Scott Jordan bought the Cedarloo Center for $1 million.

This year, he's spending another $1 million fixing it up.

The Goodwill store, the most visible tenant at the 30,000-square-foot strip mall at 4302 University Ave., has bought 20 percent of the mall property and is building a new store about 500 feet west of its current location, and Jordan is working to make the rest of the mall more visible and attractive.

"Goodwill and I worked out a proposal where I'd buy land to the west there, and they'll be able to build on," Jordan said. "They're a separate entity of the shopping center now. I'm acting as a party that is overseeing it to be completed."

Goodwill will morph from its current 8,500 to about 17,000 square feet, said Dave Boyd, its chief executive officer.

"I'd guess for the last five or six years we'd been making a concerted effort to improve our retail and donated goods infrastructure," Boyd said. "We certainly want to provide an attractive, safe working environment for (customers), and that location has been on our minds for some time."

The new store will have dedicated parking spots for as many as 50 vehicles, plus an employee lot, Boyd said.

"It will have some warehousing with truck docks and will have the conveniences of a drive-through canopy for our donors, and the size of the store will be increased about 50 percent, so the selection of the materials for the public to buy will be expanded."

The $1.35 million project is being funded by revenue bonds and a gift from an anonymous donor, Boyd said.

The new store is scheduled to open in mid- to late October, Boyd said.

Jordan will take over the existing Goodwill building, Boyd said.

Goodwill has been part of Cedarloo for about 15 years, Boyd said.

"Now, we'll own our own space," he said.

He added that customers won't see prices increase as a result of the upgrade.

"We haven't given any consideration to price increases," he said.

The handful of merchants at the mall, which include a bicycle shop and a couple of restaurants in addition to Goodwill, are excited about the changes, Jordan said.

"People are excited about leasing," he said. "The front is going to be all new and larger."

Jordan said he is looking to expand the roster of merchants to six from the current four, excluding Goodwill.

Visibility and accessibility to the facility have been problems in the past, which Jordan said will be addressed in some way.

"It sits way back there (off University Avenue), and we're going to make it much larger, with new lighting, so you can see it from University," Jordan said.

Jordan, a member of the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors, also would like to remove the University Avenue median in front of the mall to make it more accessible to eastbound traffic.

"We have a private road that goes to Cedar Heights. about a block off University, but not a lot of people know about that," he said. "We're working with the DOT to cut out the median and make it flat. There's good hopes for it, but nothing's been approved. That would be a big asset. We've worked on that for two years. Before I purchased it, I knew one negative was that if you come from Cedar Falls, you can't take a left there. Once you understand there's another way in, you're OK, but to newcomers, it's a big issue."

Upgrading the mall has been a priority for Jordan ever since he bought the property in spring 2007, he said.

"Cedarloo has been a well known shopping center that's been there, in most people's eyes, forever, but it had been neglected," he said. "We've been working on it for several months. We think it's going to be a big asset."

Jordan, an electrical contractor and owner of Heartland Properties LLC, purchased the center from Dr. Ravi Mallavaarapu. The center dates to 1953.

Contact Jim Offner at (319) 291-1598 or jim.offner@wcfcourier.com.