For developers intent on reusing malls that have lost their luster, what’s happening in Cincinnati is a necessary primer on the ups and downs of redevelopment. Developers and municipalities in the metro have been trying to transform four malls into new uses for several years, and the projects continue to drag out. For sites with multiple owners, the stakeholders might have different visions. Plus, it takes time to flesh out cohesive plans and, for some projects, to negotiate incentives.

The best Class A malls continue to thrive, but the locations of less-blessed malls still are prized, as well, as evidenced by investment interest. “Demand is very high for quality real estate, and these malls sit on 100-acre sites that are on primary roads,” said Terry Ohnmeis, a Cushman & Wakefield senior director in Cincinnati who specializes in retail services. “But we’re seeing that malls in general need to go through several cycles of going back to a lender or into receivership and then getting new owners to eventually get to the point where they’re ready for redevelopment.”

The paths that stretch before Cincinnati’s mall-redevelopment hopefuls are emblematic of others across the country.

Where Each of the 4 Cincinnati Mall Redevelopments Stands Today

EastGate Mall in Union Township

Augusta, Georgia-based Hull Property Group, an owner of retail properties primarily in the Southeast and Midwest, bought Eastgate in 2023 with an eye toward creating a mixed-use project, according to Cincinnati's Enquirer. The site has about 10 additional property owners, including Kroger, which acquired EastGate’s vacant Sears for $5.5 million in 2021. Last year, the grocery operator was preparing to raze the Sears and develop a 124,000-square-foot Kroger Marketplace, but Hull sued to stop Kroger amid concerns about how its design would affect the rest of the property, Cincinnati Business Courier reported.

Northgate Mall in Colerain Township

Earlier this year, Northgate Mall owner Tabani Group, a Dallas-based investment firm, gave a nine-acre parcel at the property back to the lender, leaving itself with less than half of the 60-acre site, according to WCPO 9 News. Meanwhile, another property owner at the site has listed for sale nine acres where a movie theater recently closed, only adding to the uncertain future of the roughly 1 million-square-foot mall. To steer eventual redevelopment toward mixed-use, Colerain Township and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority paid $2.2 million for the shuttered Sears in a bankruptcy auction last year. The city has received a grant to fund the building’s $7 million demolition, expected to occur early this year, Cincinnati Business Courier reported.

Forest Fair Mall in Forest Park and Fairfield

Forest Fair crosses the jurisdictional lines not only of two cities but also of Hamilton and Butler counties. That added another level of complexity to redevelopment efforts and helped thwart a plan this summer. A local developer who had agreed to buy the 1.5 million-square-foot mall from World Properties wanted to build a grocery-anchored retail center and light industrial on the property, according to WCPO 9 News. Among objections, however, was one county’s resistance to allow demolition funds earmarked for the project to be used on portions of the mall in the other county. More recently, Dallas-based Hillwood has proposed to build a $95 million headquarters at the site for hardware distributor Hillman Solutions, the news station reported. In 2023, Hillwood had proposed redeveloping the center into industrial and retail uses.

Tri-County Mall in Springdale

A week before Thanksgiving, the Springdale City Council approved a plan that would demolish Tri-County Mall and build City Center Springdale, a roughly $1 billion, 76-acre mixed-use community of 1,300 apartment units, 168,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 30,000 square feet of entertainment, lodging and medical uses, according to WCPO 9 News and the city council’s agenda. An investment group led by a Carmel, New York, medical doctor and senior adviser of Sharpline Equity Real Estate Investments purchased the mall for roughly $28 million in July. A previous owner defaulted on its loan after acquiring the property in 2022.

No Shortage of Prospects

Certainly mall redevelopment opportunities across the country are numerous. Tax provisions around accelerated depreciation incentivized suburban development in general in the 1960s. Ultimately, it is believed that around 300 to 400 malls will be viable over the long-term, said Cushman & Wakefield retail practice group leader Richard Latella. That doesn’t mean death for the rest but rather opportunity for reincarnation.

While examples of successful mall transformations are growing, overhaul of such properties hasn’t necessarily gotten smoother, said architect Sean Slater, senior principal in architecture firm RDC and principal-in-charge of its San Diego office. Among other projects, Slater is working on the revamp of the 1.5-million square foot West Ridge Mall in Topeka, Kansas, which sold at auction in 2023 for pennies on the dollar after its lender had paid $27 million for it at a sheriff’s auction a few years earlier. The developer is focused on creating an open-air, mixed-used project that will include retail, a concentration of restaurants and entertainment concepts and offices for the headquarters of Advisors Excel, whose founders now own West Ridge.

“Over the last 10 years, I’ve been thinking that mall redevelopment [would] get easier. People can see the writing on the wall that there’s more inherent value in a mixed-use, residential or maybe industrial project at the location,” Slater said. “But if you’ve got family trusts, private companies and other owners, it can make things very challenging if one or two hold out.”

Indeed, department stores have leveraged reciprocal easement agreements, which essentially enable them to control what users operated at the mall, to block nonretail users. In the case that the department stores no longer operate at the mall, they might use REAs to negotiate a buyout. Still, many REAs are expiring and department stores that do still operate stores are more accepting of plans that would add residential, hotel or other operators at those properties, Latella and other experts observed. “Department stores have realized that it no longer makes economic sense for them to be an obstacle to a developer who wants to do something different with the property,” added Latella. “They know that if something different isn’t tried, the mall will continue to die and owners won’t be incentivized to keep putting money into the project.”

Hard to Let Go

Members of the surrounding communities may also resist, pointed out Greensfelder Real Estate Strategy’s David Greensfelder, a specialist in redevelopment planning and other retail endeavors. Frequently, that occurs at the city level if redevelopment plans don’t fit the desires of officials or nearby residents, he said, but in some cases, residents may simply have strong sentimental connections to the property.

Greensfelder witnessed that situation firsthand 10 years ago when he worked with Cupertino, California, to draft redevelopment alternatives at the virtually empty Vallco Fashion Mall, a 1.3 million-square-foot regional shopping center near Apple headquarters. But Olympic figure skating gold medalists Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi had trained in the Cupertino Ice Center within the mall, and thus many locals cherished that property. “That kind of nostalgia is very real, and it’s a very powerful force,” he explained. “You’ve got a lot of stakeholders involved in these plans, and it’s not unusual for there to be a very vocal contingency saying: ‘We want our mall just the way it used to be.’”

Vallco also illustrates the need for patience, Greensfelder added. Shortly after the city approved a redevelopment plan in 2018, a local group sued to stop the project. The effort was unsuccessful, but it delayed the project nonetheless. A dispute over development-impact fees also emerged but was recently settled. The redevelopment, known as The Rise, is moving forward after Cupertino approved a revised plan early last year. The project will include conventional and affordable housing, office and retail and entertainment space. Where now is a partly demolished, dead mall is rising a project whose website promises “the new symbol of the American dream.”