An out-of-state developer remains interested in the vacant Macy’s building at Cortana Mall and still has the 225,000-square-foot property under contract. But the deal is stalled for now, according to broker Ryan Pecot of Stirling Properties, who is representing the buyer.
“I’ve been bullish about this and had really hoped it would be done by now,” Pecot says. “But the mechanics have stalled out.”
In August, Cortana’s owners, Moonbeam Capital Investments, listed the mall—not including its independently owned anchor tenant buildings—for sale for just $4 million. The mall’s status on the market doesn’t have anything to do with why the Macy’s deal is on hold, Pecot says.
Pecot has said the deal he is trying to close is complicated because the developer wants to subdivide the Macy’s building into several spaces for multiple tenants with nontraditional uses including service and entertainment.
He cannot estimate when the sale might close, but says the deal isn’t dead.
The Macy’s space was vacated in 2016, when the department store chain announced its Cortana location was one of 40 around the country it was shuttering.
Since then, Sears and J.C. Penney have also closed anchor stores at Cortana, leaving the mall with just one retail anchor tenant, Dillard’s, which operates a discount store in the mall.
The Sears and Penney’s buildings are also on the market for sale. With so many of the mall’s anchor tenant buildings and the main space listed for sale, Pecot says there’s been an uptick in interest in the mall site overall.
“There have been more calls coming in since, effectively, the whole thing is available,” he says. “There are clearly people interested in that asset. I don’t know if any of them have a plan.”
Various real estate brokers are representing the different anchor tenants and mall owners in their respective efforts to sell.
Cortana Mall opened in 1977 and has more than one million square feet of retail space.
—Stephanie Riegel
