The Oakland County Circuit Court has authorized the closing of Southfield’s Northland Mall. Northland was one of the nations first modern shopping malls. Built in 1954, it was the nations largest mall at the time.
The Southfield mall was the first of the four directional malls – others being Southland, Westland, and Eastland – built by Hudson’s to take advantage of Suburban growth in Metropolitan Detroit.
The City of Southfield now has the task of working with private development to revitalize and re-purpose the area. The size and central location of the area presents a variety of opportunities that give Southfield many options to get this rebuild right.
A judge on Wednesday authorized the closure of Northland Center mall in Southfield, a final chapter in the history of the nation’s first regional shopping mall.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Wendy Potts said she saw few alternatives to shutting the retail landmark, which is estimated to be losing nearly $250,000 a month and will lack any anchor stores once its Macy’s — formerly Hudson’s — leaves next month. Northland’s Target store shut earlier this month.
“There is no good choice here,” Potts said.
The judge’s decision came at the request of the mall’s court-appointed receiver, who took over Northland last fall once the mall defaulted on a $31-million loan.
The few remaining tenants are to soon receive 30-day eviction notices. No closure date has been announced, though Southfield’s acting Mayor Donald Fracassi said he was told the 1.4-million-square-foot property on 121 acres could be cleared out and boarded up by late April.
The receiver, Bloomfield Hills attorney Frank Simon, anticipates marketing the property in coming weeks for a sale and potential redevelopment. At least three parties have expressed initial interest. At a news conference, Fracassi said the city is open to potentially partnering with a developer to revamp the mall, perhaps creating a new mixed-use development with offerings beyond just retail.
“I can’t divulge who they are, but there’s a lot of people looking at that piece of property,” Fracassi said at a news conference following the judge’s decision.
Fraccassi said the city is also interested in retaining the well-known Marshall Fredericks sculpture in the mall, “Boy and Bear.”
Enclosure and decline
Northland Center opened in 1954 and was developed by the former Detroit-based J.L. Hudson Co. The mall was originally an open-air concept until a mid-1970s expansion and enclosure.
Northland for a time succeeded the old downtown Detroit Hudson’s as the region’s prime fashion destination and later refocused on middle-income shoppers. It received its last major renovation in 1991, when a food court was added.
The mall has been in visible decline since the early 2000s and struggled to attract well-to-do shoppers and popular national chains amid competition from other malls. Many of its remaining shops are locally owned.
Since 2008, Northland has been owned by a subsidiary of New York-based Ashkenazy Acquisition, which also owns Eastland Center mall.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Fracassi faulted the company for a lack of investment in the property that may have accelerated its decline.
The mayor said the owner, upon acquiring Northland, had indicated “that they were going to do a lot of work on that, including landscaping and changing things so that it would gain in popularity and shops … That never happened. To me, they let us down.”
Ashkenazy Acquisition and its lawyers have not returned multiple messages for comment.
The mall’s receiver has described how Northland is losing $247,609 every month it stays open and that nearly half of the tenants fail to pay rent on time. The mall also has $3 million in unpaid bills, including $700,000 in overdue water bills.
And about $27 million is still owed on the $31-million loan.
The problems go beyond finances. Northland’s water tower is broken, its roof and electrical systems are in poor shape and an estimated $6 million or more is needed to return it to a “functioning shopping mall,” according to the receiver’s report.
Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/michigan/2015/02/25/northland-mall-closing/23992733/
