Drive past 501 1st Avenue in Coralville today and you'll see the same plywood that's been there for months. The old Iowa River Power building, the one with the sweeping river view and 46 years of Sunday brunches, closed abruptly in November 2023 after an eviction notice ended its run. A new owner bought it in September 2024, promised a reopening by late summer 2026, and then, according to a Gazette update from this past May, pushed that target to sometime in 2027. If you've been waiting for that building to signal that the neighborhood has turned a corner, you're still waiting.
But if you've spent a Wednesday evening browsing produce tables at the farmers market, grabbed a pastry before nine on a Saturday, or already circled September 4 on your calendar, you know something the empty building doesn't tell you. Iowa River Landing changed this year anyway. Two small businesses opened, a weekly market ran its full season, and one very loud football tradition is about to bring 10,000 people back to the district, none of it waiting on the landmark to catch up.
The Building That Keeps Moving Its Own Finish Line
The Iowa River Power site has a longer history than most people realize. The building dates to 1902, when it was converted into a power plant on the site of a dam built back in the 1840s. It didn't become a restaurant until 1977, and it stayed one for nearly half a century, known for steak, seafood, and a Sunday brunch that also happened to be a regular stop for Hawkeye football recruits and their families.
When it closed in 2023, Coralville treated the loss like a temporary setback. Mark Kaufman, a University of Iowa alum and the founder of Athletico Physical Therapy, bought the property through his company, Old Gold LLC, for roughly $3 million in September 2024. Two months later, the plan sounded straightforward: renovate the historic brick shell, keep the industrial bones, reopen by late summer 2026.
That single-restaurant plan didn't survive contact with the actual building. By this spring, the scope had grown into something closer to a small hospitality campus: a restaurant and bar, a separate coffee shop and bakery, a cigar and cocktail lounge, event space, and a rooftop deck. The project has also picked up $1.3 million in redevelopment tax credits from the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the kind of funding that comes with its own inspection and approval timeline. Kaufman is now targeting a soft opening in 2027.
Here's the timeline laid out plainly:
| Milestone | Date | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Iowa River Power Restaurant closes | November 2023 | Ends 46-year run after an eviction notice |
| Old Gold LLC buys the building | September 2024 | Roughly $3 million purchase |
| First public reopening target | November 2024 | "Late summer 2026," single restaurant concept |
| Revised target | May 2026 | Soft opening now expected in 2027, scope expanded to five distinct spaces |
None of this makes Kaufman's project a bad bet. A grayfield site with structural issues, a historic designation to protect, and a five-part build-out is a genuinely different animal than the diner it's replacing. But it does mean the building everyone points to as the neighborhood's comeback story isn't actually where the comeback has been happening.
What Actually Opened While Everyone Watched the Plywood
Two much smaller businesses moved into Iowa River Landing this year, and they did it on a completely different clock.
The Eat Shop, a bakery and cafe founded by Cheryl Maloney, opened its third and largest location at Iowa River Landing on May 1, 2026. Maloney started baking as a hobby during the pandemic, sold her first goods to friends and neighbors, then opened a 1,000-square-foot shop in Solon in 2021 and a second location in Marion in February 2025. She announced the Coralville expansion on Facebook on November 13, 2025, and had the doors open about five and a half months later. The shop now runs seven days a week from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., serving pastries, sandwiches, and coffee, and it's already the largest of her three locations by seating. The Eat Shop also supplies pastries to University of Iowa cafes in the Boyd Law Building and the College of Public Health, so if you've had one of her cookies on campus, this is the same kitchen.
Crisp & Green, a fast-casual spot built around bowls and healthy fare, was announced for Iowa River Landing in September 2025 with a target opening in early 2026 at 805 East 2nd Avenue. Compare that runway to the landmark down the street: months of planning against years of permitting.
Neither of these openings needed a press conference or a tax credit package. They needed a lease and a build-out, and that turned out to be a matter of months, not a multi-year negotiation with the state historic preservation office.
The Market That Didn't Need a Grand Reopening
The Coralville Farmers Market ran its full 2026 season at Iowa River Landing this summer, every Wednesday from June 3 through August 5, 4 to 7 p.m., along East 9th Street between Quarry Road and East 2nd Avenue. Local vendors sold produce, baked goods, flowers, and honey, and the market wrapped its season a little over two weeks ago. No delay, no revised timeline, no plywood. It simply ran the schedule it published back in the spring and closed the season on time.
It's a small thing next to a five-part hospitality build-out, but it's also the kind of consistency that tells you more about a neighborhood's actual rhythm than a marquee project ever will.
One More Date Already on the Calendar
The 17th annual FRYfest lands at Iowa River Landing on September 4, the day before Iowa opens its home football schedule against Northern Illinois at Kinnick Stadium's Duke Slater Field. The event, built around the legacy of former coach Hayden Fry, runs out of the Hyatt Regency Coralville Hotel and Conference Center with a Hawkeye trade show, autograph sessions, and a free concert headlined by 80s cover band The Spazmatics, with local group Rattlebox opening. It draws more than 10,000 people to the district in a single day, and it does it every year without needing the old restaurant building to be finished. FRYfest has run since 2009, and the concert and beverage garden proceeds even help fund Coralville's Fourth of July celebration, a tradition that's outlasted more than one restaurant on this stretch of river.
What This Actually Means If You Live Here
If you're watching for one big reopening to prove Iowa River Landing has arrived, you might be watching the wrong building. The Eat Shop and Crisp & Green both moved from announcement to open storefront in under six months. The farmers market ran its entire season without a hiccup. FRYfest doesn't care what's happening at 501 1st Avenue, and neither does the 10,000-person crowd it draws every September.
None of this means the old power plant won't be worth the wait. A restaurant, bar, bakery, cigar lounge, and rooftop deck inside a building with that much history could be genuinely special when it finally opens, whenever that ends up being. But the neighborhood's pulse this year has come from the businesses that didn't need a redevelopment agreement to get open, and that's worth knowing if you're trying to read what's actually changing here versus what's still just promised.
Coralville has a habit of filling in around its biggest projects rather than waiting on them, and that pattern is worth paying attention to if you're thinking about where you want to be in this area next. Opal & Oak Real Estate spends a lot of time thinking about what gives a neighborhood its actual texture, not just its headline project, and we'd love to walk you through what that looks like on the ground in Coralville. Schedule a Curated Listing Consultation and let's talk about it, maybe over something from The Eat Shop.
