Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has produced a series of stories covering recent financial setbacks at the Upper Valley Mall. The paper has covered the mall’s initial financial troubles, closures of two long-time anchors and the shift of retail to Bechtle Avenue. For this story, the paper spoke to regional experts, as well as local business owners to discuss the mall’s possible future.
By the numbers:
73: Acres on Upper Valley Mall property
$47 million: Amount of the loan Simon Properties defaulted on
738,000: Square feet of space in the Upper Valley Mall, not including the property owned by Sears and Macy’s
The Upper Valley Mall has been the backbone of retail in Clark County since it opened in 1971, but local leaders and a report from a Columbus real estate firm say it’s time to consider alternative uses for the property.
Simon Management Associates, the mall’s former owners, defaulted on a $47 million loan last year and the property slipped into receivership. Local officials have complained that Simon neglected the site for years. And in January, Upper Valley was hit with back-to-back announcements that both JC Penney and Macy’s would shutter their Springfield locations.
Those announcements mean it’s likely too late for the mall to recover, said Bob Matias, senior vice president of retail for Equity, a commercial real estate firm based in Hilliard. The company produced a report for the Chamber of Greater Springfield that reviewed retail across Clark County, including the status of the mall.
That study recommended putting a plan in place for potential uses for the mall aside from large retailers.
“The mall could have been salvageable five, six or seven years ago,” Matias said. “But (Simon) needed to reinvest through the years and they didn’t. I think it’s too late for the patient.”
Urban Retail, based in Chicago, took over daily management of Upper Valley. It hasn’t attracted a major anchor to replace JC Penney or Macy’s. Officials from that company declined comment.
Despite the mall’s struggles, several local stores have fared well, said Mellissa Adams, who opened Raven Books there this year. The independent book seller has received enough business it plans to move into a larger space later this year and will add a coffee shop owned by her husband.
“For me personally, things are looking up,” Adams said of her business. “I’m doing great here at the mall honestly.”
Epic Loot Games and Comics will open in early October, owner Scott Cozzolino said. Two other small businesses will also open at the Clark County mall next month.
But with two major anchors leaving this year, local officials have to develop a plan for the future, said Horton Hobbs, the chamber’s vice president of economic development.
“Certainly there are retailers there today that are trying to make a go of it and as consumers we need to patronize those businesses as much as we can,” Hobbs said. “The fact of the matter is with two anchors gone it poses real challenges obviously for the mall.”
A long process
Equity’s report didn’t detail what the mall’s future use might look like, Matias said. But once a buyer is found, it likely won’t return to its heyday as the area’s primary retail center.
The report wasn’t a master plan for the site’s future. It was meant to serve as an overview of retail in Springfield and a road map showing where the mall is now, Matias said, as well as advising local officials on what role they could play in its future.
“The bottom line conclusion is there still could be a retail component to that site, but it’s not going to be the magnitude of what it once was with the Upper Valley Mall,” Matias said.
Local officials can play a variety of roles in shaping the future of the site, depending on the buyer, said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz and Associates Inc., a national retail consulting firm based in New York. In some cases, local governments have even provided financing or other incentives to get projects off the ground. The land has value, he said, but the question is what to do with it.
Malls have been transformed into everything from hospitals to condominiums, Davidowitz said. But typically, it takes years before developers can come up with the capital and the right idea.
“My experience is that doesn’t happen tomorrow,” Davidowitz said. “That happens in six years. What happens tomorrow is there’s a blight for years.”
Local officials have kept in contact with Macy’s, which owns its closed site at the mall, and attended a conference in Las Vegas earlier this year to meet with retail experts, Hobbs said. But a new buyer must be found first, he said.
“Unfortunately right now the mall is so much in the bank’s hands and until there’s a new owner, it’s really hard to define what’s next,” Hobbs said.
Many similar malls across the U.S. have struggled as retail trends have shifted, Clark County Commissioner John Detrick said. Local management is working hard to attract tenants but the former owners gave up on the property years ago, he said.
“Simon did our community no favors because they took their money and ran,” Detrick said. “They could have gotten creative and done more things.”
Simon declined to comment.
Smaller tenants are important to a mall, Matias said, but anchors like JC Penney are crucial to investors and potential buyers because they pay higher rents and draw more traffic.
“You needed to treat the patient while it still had a pulse, a pulse meaning Macy’s still being open, JC Penney still being open,” Matias said. “It could have been salvageable at that point but the fact that those guys are out, they’re not coming back.”
Without those anchors, struggling malls can hang on for months or even years, Davidowitz said, but attracting tenants who can pay higher rents becomes increasingly difficult.
“The typical thing is it just drags on and on,” he said of most declining malls. “And it goes little by little but it keeps getting worse. In other words before the sun comes out, get ready for a lot of bad weather.”
Still betting on mall
Darryl Yount, store manager at Sears, often hears from customers asking about the future of the store, the mall’s lone remaining anchor. But he sees important differences between Sears and anchors like Macy’s and JC Penney, which depend on clothing and other less expensive items for most of their business.
Sears sells those products, but relies on larger items those stores don’t carry, including lawn and garden supplies, major appliances and tools. Customers spend more on those transactions, he said.
His store is faring well, he said, and has no plans to close. The company agreed to invest in a new mattress section this year and has continued to make other upgrades.
“That was a big investment for the company to say, ‘Let’s go ahead and put this department in’ and it’s paid off and we’ll continue to do those things if we see the return on investment,” Yount said.
Cozzolino and his partners have operated the Epic Loot comic store in Centerville for more than four years. They chose Upper Valley for an expansion because of its ample parking, noting 80 to 90 people typically visit the store on Friday nights.
The mall draws in customers to specific attractions, he said, like the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, which makes sense for his business. The comic store acts as a retail space, but also as a gathering space for its customers to play games and mingle.
“If there’s a lot of other interesting niche stores in the mall, that will lead to people kind of looking around to see what else there is,” Cozzolino said.
Upper Valley will also add Little Vittles, a restaurant serving hot dogs and hamburgers, and Wings of Love Crusades, a Bingo hall that will be open three days per week.
While the national anchors have closed, Adams of Raven Books said a local effort continues to encourage residents to shop at the mall. She said she plans to invest in at least another year as a tenant to see how the business fares.
“I’m not really worried,” Adams said.
Buyer will be important
The mall may be viable now, Hobbs said, but local officials need to think ahead about how the space might be used. It will be crucial that whatever entity eventually buys the property is willing to work with community members and develop the right plan for the site, he said.
“We may have to look at that space differently over time,” Hobbs said. “The most important thing is that this mall needs to be sold to the right buyer, somebody that’s interested in partnering with the community to maintain that space as a viable place in our community. It may be a mix of retail, it may be all retail and it may be other uses.”
Upper Valley’s recent struggles aren’t unusual, Matias said. Shopping centers in similar communities have also been hit as consumers increasingly shop online and traditional anchors try to reinvent their businesses.
But that doesn’t mean retail in general is hurting locally, Matias said. Some of the mall’s challenges are due to the success of the nearby businesses on Bechtle Avenue, he said.
“That’s the big misnomer,” Matias said. “Just because the mall is going away doesn’t mean retail is going away from Springfield. Bechtle is very healthy and retailers do very well on that side of the highway.”
Watching the mall fade is difficult for shoppers like Lorrie Clark, a London, Ohio, resident who frequents the Upper Valley Mall. She remembers shopping there as a teenager and said she doesn’t believe it’s too late to keep it viable. It’s also important for shoppers to support the stores there, she said.
“I know they’re trying,” Clark said. “I want to save the jobs there. Clark County definitely needs the tax revenue.”
Springfield has a large and diverse enough population to support plenty of retail sites, Matias said. The challenge for local officials will be working with the mall’s next owner to determine what use for the property would be the best fit for the community.
“This is not a new story,” Matias said. “This is the evolution of retail and how it’s changing. It doesn’t mean retail is going away but it’s for sure changing.”
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