Posted Apr 7, 2022, 5:37 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Philadelphia
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Philly’s biggest mall owner wants to build thousands of apartments on its properties to help pay its debts
Quote:
Facing more than $2 billion in debt and a wounded mall business, the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust has an audacious plan to change its fortunes: The region’s biggest mall owner wants to become a developer and put 5,200 apartments on six mall sites as a way to raise cash and bring shoppers and diners onto its properties.
PREIT, has proposed or discussed putting apartments in the region in the Exton Square Mall, Willow Grove Park, and Plymouth Meeting Mall in the Pennsylvania suburbs and more in the Moorestown Mall in South Jersey.
Moorestown Mall
The company’s plan is to build 375 apartments at the Moorestown Mall in South Jersey, along with an outpatient medical center, and eventually a hotel. A later phase could add hundreds of additional apartments.
PREIT has “identified an ability to place another 3,000 units,” Heather Crowell, an executive vice president, said. PREIT has not given a time frame for the second phase.
Plymouth Meeting Mall
Among the apartments under consideration, PREIT has proposed an 11-story 503-unit complex for the Plymouth Meeting Mall near roads that carry 92 million vehicles a year.
It hasn’t gone smoothly.
Plymouth residents are concerned over increased sewer capacity and traffic. The site is zoned for a 150-unit retirement community and the zoning hearing board denied the application for the apartment complex, said Chris Manero, the chair of the Plymouth Township Council.
“So much of this has been occurring during the pandemic. There hasn’t really been a lot of public meetings where they have presented the idea,” Manero said. “We want to help them succeed but we also want to do what’s best for the township and its current residents.”
PREIT redeveloped the exterior of the Plymouth Meeting Mall but the shopping area inside the malls isn’t doing well, Manero added.
Willow Grove Mall
At Willow Grove in Abington, PREIT has proposed a 365-apartment complex on the Bloomingdale’s parking lot. PREIT says the project would help revitalize the mall with families living within walking distance of the mall’s attractions and prevent the repurposing of the center for an e-commerce warehouse or logistics center.
Lora Lehmann, an Abington resident who has reservations about the plan and has posted her concerns online, said that she would like to see the Willow Grove Mall thrive. “We all want the mall here,” she said. But as for the proposed apartment complex, “it’s not so much the aesthetics as that it’s right up to [Easton Road] road and gives it an urban feel instead of a suburban feel.”
Lehmann also has concerns that approving the mall would open the door to other apartments in the Willow Grove Park area.
That could happen. When PREIT asked the township to permit its apartment complex, township manager Richard Manfredi said the township couldn’t just approve zoning for one project. Officials now are considering an ordinance that would allow the construction of other apartments or condos in the Willow Grove Park area close to nearby train stations, Manfredi said.
Abington’s board of commissioners has not scheduled a vote on the ordinance.
Coradino said he feels good about the Willow Grove project.
Exton Square Mall
Defections have hurt. Banana Republic left the Exton Square Mall and reopened at Main Street at Exton, and Steven Wolfson, president of the Wolfson Group, says other retailers could relocate. But he adds that “I want [Exton Square] to be successful. I want them to do well because more customers come into the market and cross shop.”
As the mall business declined at the Exton Square Mall, PREIT sold parcels for a Whole Foods supermarket and an apartment complex.
When PREIT came back to West Whiteland Township with a second plan for apartments, the township tapped the brakes. There were two fires and health violations in the food court in 2019. The township officials also noticed a decline in retail tenants. Among PREIT’s major malls, Exton Square has the lowest tenant occupancy rate, about 50%, according to its regulatory filings.
PREIT developed a plan for 2,000 new apartments, plus retailers, two hotels, and public space. Coradino confirmed that PREIT developed the master plan for the Exton Square Mall but as they were doing so, a buyer approached PREIT. The firm disclosed last month that it is selling the mall for $27.5 million.
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Read/view more here:
https://www.inquirer.com/business/retail...GwgxovCDHknXlybC7NmSdyyiBQew8jM3h2yR9TsY
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