Less than two weeks after the 40-year-old Cortana Mall went on the market for $4 million, another of its vacant anchor tenant spaces—the Sears department store—is also being offered for sale.
The nearly 241,000-square-foot store, which sits on 18 acres and recently closed, is being offered as a “redevelopment opportunity,” according to the listing material. The asking price is “best offer.”
The listing was not unexpected. Two of the troubled mall’s other vacant anchor spaces—J.C. Penney and Macy’s—are also for sale, and earlier this month, mall owner Moonbeam Capital Investments listed Cortana for sale for $2 million less than it paid for the property in 2013.
Moonbeam does not own the anchor tenant spaces; those are tenant owned.
It is unclear whether the recent listings of the mall and the Sears site will impact a purchase agreement on the 225,000-square-foot Macy’s space, which was vacated in 2016. An out-of-state developer has the property under contract and is hoping to subdivide the space and lease it to multiple tenants for retail, service and entertainment uses.
“There’s no indication anything has changed,” says Stirling Properties broker Ryan Pecot, who represents the developer. “But clearly they’re keeping an eye on everything that’s going on.”
Pecot, who said earlier this summer he hoped the deal would close by August,
now says he has no idea when the sale might be finalized. But he says the Sears listing was not unexpected.
“We knew it was coming,” he says. “J.C.Penney is out there, too.”
Cortana, once Baton Rouge’s premier shopping mecca, has struggled since the Mall of Louisiana opened in 1999. But as traditional malls and big box retailers have experienced problems in recent years due to online shopping, its fortunes have declined precipitously.
Currently, only a Dillard discount store remains as a retail anchor. Virginia College occupies the anchor space that once belonged to Mervyn’s and, before that, Service Merchandise.
—Stephanie Riegel
