Fashion Square Shopping Center was purchased by the owners of Midland Mall in Saginaw

SAGINAW CITY, MI – Fashion Square Mall will join a family of malls owned by a New York investment group that includes Midland Mall, officials said.

Great Neck, New York-based Cohan Retail Investment Group bought the indoor shopping center for $10.8 million in an online auction. The identity of the buyer was not released at the time as the sale was pending additional paperwork.

But the deal was completed on Thursday, September 22, and an official representing the auction said Kohan Retail Investment Group was the new owner. The mall remained open during the process.

The sale was completed less than two weeks before the mall’s 50th anniversary.

Officials with the new ownership group did not immediately return messages from The Saginaw News/MLive.

The company’s website showed a history of investing in shopping centers.

Excluding Fashion Square Mall, the website showed the group’s 61 retail centers, including six malls in Michigan: Adrian Mall, Birchwood Mall in Fort Gratiot, The Crossroads Mall in Portage, Lansing Mall, Midland Mall in Larkin City and The Westwood Mall Market.

While the other Michigan sites remain open, the Adrian Mall was closed and condemned in June 2020 due to structural issues, according to LenConnector.com, part of the USA Today Network.

Cohan Retail Investment Group’s purchase of Midland Mall followed a similar pattern to its purchase of Fashion Square Mall. In both cases, the previous owners lost the property in foreclosure.

Cohan’s Retail Investment Group purchased Midland Mall for $9.4 million in June 2018, then announced plans to maintain the property as an indoor mall.

According to the company’s website, the investment group recently entered the mall with a series of acquisitions, including the purchase of 13 new malls between June and November 2021.

Saginaw County municipal and business leaders said they have yet to speak with representatives from Cohan’s Retail Investment Group, but are optimistic after hearing news of the new owners.

“We think we’ll be in touch with them very quickly,” Saginaw City Manager Brian Rombalski said.

We look forward to what the future holds for the mall. It’s one of those things where you take a deep breath and welcome the new team into the environment and see what they want to do and then build a relationship with them.

The sale comes as state leaders hope for a resurgence of business in the mall’s business district, which borders Kochville Township.

Saginaw Future Inc. President Joan Crary spoke with Rombalski about working with the new owners to set the company up for success.

“Our goal is to try to get a meeting with the new owners so we can learn about their plans for the future and ways we can help them,” Crary said. “If it’s beneficial to the community, there may be some incentive tools we can explore. We’re very interested in[Fashion Square Mall]because it needs to be a comfortable place.”

Cohan Retail Investment Group won the auction Aug. 24 in a landslide after participating in an online bidding war with a second investor, who remained anonymous.

The mall is up for purchase in part because its previous owner — Namdar Realty Group — sold it in 2015. He defaulted on a $34.8 million mortgage he owed to Wells Fargo in 2020. The lending giant seized the property last year as part of a foreclosure auction, planning to sell it in an online auction in August.

Officials for both Namdar Realty Group and Cohan Retail Investment Group list their headquarters in Great Neck, New York, less than two miles from each other.

In addition to Wells Fargo, Cohan Retail Investment Group became the fourth owner to operate Fashion Square Mall.

The institute was first opened in On October 4, 1972, customers first walked through the doors of the facility, built on 71 acres of farmland in northern Saginaw.

At the time, anchor tenants JCPenney and Sears were the site’s main attractions. Other primary retailers include Town & Country Fashions, William C. Wichman Company, Bintz Sports, Carter’s Shop, Seitner’s, Alfano Stride Rite, and Tait’s Hobby Shop.

During the mall boom of the 1970s and ’80s, which helped define American culture, Fashion Square Mall swelled with customers. In turn, the mall attracted commercial growth along Bay and Tittabawassee avenues in those first decades, feeding a hungry business district.

In the year In 1993, a new food court was added to allow patrons to dine while browsing the shops.

Eight years later, the facility underwent a $10 million facelift that applied a 21st-century sheen to its 1970s-built body.

Foot traffic has declined in recent decades, but that’s due both to the region’s declining population and a shift in consumer shopping habits to online stores.

In January 2001, Chattanooga-based CBL & Associates Properties Inc. bought the complex, along with 20 other regional malls and two malls, from the mall’s master developer — Cleveland-based Richard E. Jacobs Group Inc. — for $1.2 billion.

The mall was sold again in July 2016 to Namdar Realty Group — along with The Lakes in Muskegon — for a combined price of $66.5 million, including a $38.2 million loan consideration from Fashion Square Mall.

Not all of the 529,944-square-foot mall was sold at the August auction.

While most of the stores in the 100-room mall are tenants, Macy’s has its own box there.

Sears had its own box office at the north end of the facility, although the store closed in 2019. Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Transformco — which now owns Sears and its former location in the mall — hired Stokas Beery Real Estate to sell the old one. Sears department. That property remains for sale.

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The Saginaw Fashion Square Mall is up for auction

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