Greendale officials have a developer, a development proposal and a TIF district in place to redevelop the former Boston Store at Southridge Mall, but decades-old covenants on the property — that are still in place — have halted those plans for months.
Last week, Milwaukee-based
Barrett Lo Visionary Development (BLVD)
unveiled renderings and concept plans for up to 675 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space to be built in phases at the 15-acre site.
The Boston Store property has been vacant since 2018 and was bought by the village of Greendale in 2021. BLVD has entered into an agreement with the village to tear down the 220,000-square-foot building and redevelop it.
However, restrictions written by past mall owners prohibit the property from being redeveloped into anything but another department store. Those restrictions can’t be lifted without approval from the other property owners at Southridge Mall and only two of the three other owners have reached an agreement with the village.
According to a Monday statement from Greendale village manager Mike Hawes, an agreement between all property owners has not yet been reached.
In order to move the process along, the village had voted in August to resort to state statutes that allow the village to condemn the property and remove the restrictions. The condemnation process would have only targeted the restrictions controlled by Houston-based Fidelis Realty Partners, which is the one owner that has not yet reached an agreement with the village, village officials said. Last spring, Fidelis bought the former Sears store that is now occupied by Dick’s Sporting Goods, T.J. Maxx and Golf Galaxy stores.
However, the village has not yet embarked on the condemnation process.
"The village is continuing to work cooperatively and constructively with the landowners at the mall to allow the development project to move forward," Hawes said Monday. "The village has not needed to exercise condemnation rights to move the project forward and it does not appear that will be necessary at this time."
Hawes said that he still expects the village to sell the Boston Store property to BLVD by the end of the year, as is outlined in the development agreement.
In the meantime, BLVD will submit applications for a planned unit development which will go through the normal stages with the Plan Commission and Village Board, though a specific timeline has not yet been finalized, according to Hawes.
[gallery td_gallery_title_input="Barrett Lo's proposed redevelopment" size="full" td_select_gallery_slide="slide" ids="592041,592042,592038,592040,592037"]
Core of Southridge Mall still in foreclosure
The redevelopment — and the property's covenants — have also been the centerpiece of court discussions relating to the foreclosure of the 560,000-square-foot mall itself, which does not include the separately owned JCPenney, Macy’s, and former Sears and Boston Store properties.
Receiver Spinoso Real Estate Group had until December 2023 to market the mall property to potential buyers or schedule it for a sheriff’s sale, but
last June the deadline was extended to December 2024 in order to give the parties more time to remove or alter the covenants and to bring development plans into focus.
That's because attorneys for Wells Fargo, which brought the foreclosure action in 2020, argued that the uncertainty around the development plans made it hard to effectively market the mall for sale and could impact the sale price itself.
No new records have been filed in the Southridge foreclosure case since last year.
[caption id="attachment_539982" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
Southridge Mall in Greendale.[/caption]
