Dive Brief:
- The Plantation (FL) City Council has given a Florida developer the green light for a $300 million overhaul of a once-popular city mall, the South Florida Business Journal reported.
- The Encore Housing Opportunity Fund, CEO Art Falcone told the Business Journal, will break ground in the second quarter of 2017 and will turn the property into a mixed-use complex featuring 700 apartments, 250,000 square feet of office space and 225,000 square feet of commercial and retail.
- Encore purchased the shopping center and its 32-acre site for $37.7 million at a bankruptcy auction in 2015. The mall had been closed 10 years before that despite efforts on behalf of the previous owner to redevelop it. According to the Business Journal, developers will transform the self-contained center into an as-of-yet unnamed open-air mall with "pedestrian-friendly" streets.
Dive Insight:
In October, a California developer, Westfield Corp, proposed a similar overhaul of the Warner Center mall in Los Angeles. Unlike Fashion Mall, however, the Los Angeles retail center is open and still has some tenants. Westfield wants to replace the mall with a $1.5 billion mixed-use complex called Promenade 2035. The new complex would be part of the West San Fernando Valley downtown district, which would include 1,500 residential units, retail, dining, office space, a park, hotels and a 15,000-seat arena. In addition, developers said most of the district’s buildings will have rooftop gardens or some other green feature.
Another ambitious mall renovation was the Vallco Shopping Mall, in Cupertino, CA. Included in developer Sand Hill Property Co’s $ 3 billion, mixed-use plans was a $300 million green roof with a 30-acre community park, an orchard, a vineyard and almost four miles of trails. The developer made efforts to garner community support and even promised to build a $40 million elementary school in exchange for an OK from Cupertino voters. However, in November, voters rejected two measures that would have allowed the development to move forward.