|
|||||
| |
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
By Jon Chavez, Blade business writer
1-07-01
For more than five years the fate of Southwyck Shopping Center has been tied to plans for a new mall in southwest Lucas County within the radius from which Southwyck draws customers.
The Mall at Fallen Timbers project by General Growth Properties, Inc., of Chicago, has proceeded at a snail’s pace since it was announced in May, 1995.
Planned is a 1.2 million-square-foot super regional mall that would have four anchor stores. It is to be on 130 acres off U.S. 24 near I-475/U.S. 23 in Maumee.
Christiana Moffa, a General Growth spokesman, said last week that the developer is working with Maumee officials to obtain necessary permits before it could begin its project. The company hopes to break ground in the spring, but delays could happen, she said. Some site preparation has begun, but mostly it is dirt being moved in for future use.
The spokesman said there is no timetable for the project, and negotiations continue with potential anchor tenants, although Montgomery Ward was not one.
‘‘We can’t announce anything until we have approval on everything,’’ Ms. Moffa said. No tenants have been announced.
Local real-estate agents have said the speculation is that the new mall’s anchors would be Dillard’s, Sears, J.C. Penney, and Kaufmann’s, which is a division of the May Co. stores and which has no stores in the Toledo trade area.
One key to the mall project’s proceeding is Dillard’s. It operates a department store and a home store in Southwyck and also has an ownership stake in Southwyck through its 1998 purchase of Mercantile Stores Co., which was the parent firm of the former Lion stores.
If Dillard’s joins the new mall, it is unclear whether it would close its Southwyck department store.
Mark London, a Chicago-based mall consultant who is a former General Growth executive, said the tenant mix at the Maumee mall probably will more closely resemble a 1.4 million-square-foot mall that General Growth opened last year in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The RiverTown Crossings mall has as its anchors Hudson’s; J.C. Penney; Kohl’s; Sears; Galyan’s Trading Co., an outdoors sporting goods dealer; and Younkers, which is a discount department store.
Galyan’s reportedly has agreed to put a store into a strip retailing center that General Growth would build adjacent to its Maumee mall project.
NOTICE: This article, which may be copyrighted, is reprinted with specific permission granted to Heidelberg College. Further reprint rights must be secured from the publisher.
Heidelberg College / Office of College
Relations / webmaster@heidelberg.edu