The owner of Cortana Mall, Moonbeam Capital Investments, remains tight-lipped this afternoon about its plans for the future of the mall, choosing not to respond to calls and emails about why the mall’s few remaining tenants have been asked to vacate the property by mid-September.
Does Moonbeam finally have a purchase agreement for the property, which it unsuccessfully listed for sale in 2017?
Perhaps. But not necessarily, according to real estate experts, who say even if Moonbeam does not have a buyer lined up, shuttering the 1-million-square-foot facility now could make it easier to sell.
That may seem counterintuitive. But veteran broker Mark Hebert with Kurz and Hebert Commercial Real Estate, says if the few existing tenants are not generating enough income to cover operating expenses such as electricity, AC, security and insurance, shuttering the facility—even before there’s a deal—makes more sense.
“Once your property is vacant you can negotiate freely,” Hebert says. “And your new buyer, if one is out there, doesn’t have to deal with evicting tenants, some of whom may not want to go.”
If a deal is in the works, Build Baton Rouge President and CEO Chris Tyson says it is going to be difficult to execute without a master plan for redeveloping the entire Florida Boulevard corridor. Cortana Mall is just one of many distressed properties—albeit the largest one—on the busy thoroughfare and it cannot be looked at in isolation, he says.
“It’s hard to look at that much space without a broader conceptualization of Florida Boulevard,” he says. “It’s something we want to look at in 2020.”
Tyson says he’s heard talk about potential uses for a redeveloped Cortana space, including using the facility for some sort of mixed-use purposes that includes vocational or workforce training.
“It’s a lot of space so we should be thinking about what is a mixed-use, better deployment of that kind of space,” Tyson. “You can’t think of it as just how do we get the mall back up and running?”
Whatever its future, broker Justin Langlois of Stirling Properties hopes something happens soon.
“It’s clear something is going on there but that doesn’t mean it’s something positive,” he says. “I just don’t know who will be up for that much space.”
