Marion mall to be cultural center

“It’s beautiful in there, but it’s been dead,” she said. “Everybody’s had to work together to make it happen.”

Chad Seybold has worked as a project manager for An, who has been associated with multiple downtown Marion properties. In 2011, An’s associate Esther Son entered into a lease agreement with James E. Kraemer, who owned the mall under the name of his company The Centrum Mall LLC from June 2008 till June 2013, property records show.

Kraemer sold the property to Son for $110,500 on June 27, 2013, according to the assessor’s office and property deed, respectively. Son sold it to Keith Dow and Erin Seybold, Chad Seybold’s wife, for $115,000 the same day.

“It really had nothing to do with them buying the

Centrum,” Schlechty said of the deal Chad Seybold negotiated. “I really think he thought it was good for the community.

Erin Seybold, who Schlechty said is at the mall daily and actively helping renovate it, could not be reached for comment.

Schlechty said the idea to reorient the 17,000-square-foot building was spurred by a conversation she had with An and Maria Stefanovic of Hotel Marion about the mall’s unique layout as conducive to small local businesses and creative organizations.

“I always thought it was such a beautiful spot,” she said. “(The mall is) just a perfect opportunity because it’s just a lot of small spaces with people getting started, and the right people just seem to keep coming.”

Other tenants that are members of Creative CommUnity include Aquaticlear, a local water purification start-up; ArtFelt, the studio of watercolor artist Anne Maddox; and AGC Devine Fashions Boutique.

Expected tenants include a restaurant, Schlechty said.

Maddox said the revamped Centrum Mall will differ from other malls, including Marion’s Five Points Mall on the Bypass, with regard to its tenants and activities.

Creative CommUnity prefers small businesses over chain stores, for example. Tenants don’t necessarily have to be culturally oriented, Maddox said, but should serve a need of the local community.

“It’s to sort of try and connect people,” she said. “It’s to get people working in the community together and to provide what’s lacking.”

The building would also host events ranging from book studies to film viewings to business seminars, Maddox said.

Creative CommUnity is not the first to try to revive Centrum Mall. Former owner James Kraemer began recruiting new stores and restaurants upon purchasing the property in 2008.

Within months, Kraemer succeeded in gaining several new tenants, but most appear to have since left, as does Kraemer’s freight brokering company Midwest Loads, which had been a mall tenant for about seven years prior to his purchasing the building.

Kraemer could not be reached for comment.

Tenants that have left the mall since Kraemer’s arrival include a few cultural organizations. Officials with those tenants said their relocations were unrelated to the mall management, but their needs proved better met by other facilities.

Marion-Grant County Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Karen Niverson said the organization, which was a mall tenant prior to Kraemer’s arrival, moved out in 2012 to increase visibility. The bureau decentralized, converting from one office to three mini visitors stations, Niverson said.

Marion Philharmonic Orchestra Executive Director Sheila Todd said the nonprofit left the mall for a workspace at Taylor University, whose houses the orchestra’s music library. Todd said the change allowed her to be more mobile and save the organization money.

A synthetic ice rink was also moved into the Centrum Mall shortly after Kraemer took over. Mark Fauser, executive director of Marion’s Community School of the Arts, told the Chronicle-Tribune in 2008 that Jennifer Seybold, wife of Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold, purchased the rink and would operate it for CSA.

It’s unclear when the rink was removed. Fauser could not be reached for comment.