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BROOKLYN CENTER, MN-Gap and Old Navy recently decided to close their stores at Brookdale after their leases had expired. The mall is in receivership after its former owner, Talisman Cos., failed to pay its property taxes last year.
The departure of the two stores, owned by Gap Inc., leaves an additional 35,000 sf of vacant space at the mall, according to Robbin Hahn, the general manager of the mall. Last year, the regional mall lost two of its anchors, J.C. Penney's 140,000-sf store and Mervyn's, which closed all of its Twin Cities stores last year. She declined to say how much of the 1 million-sf mall is vacant.
"It's a great piece of real estate in a wonderful location," says Hahn, who works for Madison Marquette, the Washington, D.C.-based retail real estate firm that was hired to manage it more than a year ago. Brookdale is near Interstate 694 and Highway 100.
Hahn said her firm will do a telephone survey of area residents to identify what types of stores they would like to see at Brookdale, and hopes to complete that survey and have the information available for its leasing team in time to talk to potential tenants at the International Council of Shopping Centers annual meeting in Las Vegas next month.
The firm plans to follow up with focus groups, and then "intercepts" with shoppers at the mall to identify why they are coming to Brookdale. The positioning strategy for the mall will likely dovetail with the city of Brooklyn Center's plans to create a Town Center near the mall, Hahn says.
Madison Marquette has managed the mall since last summer and was named a court-appointed receiver for the property early this year after its owner, Talisman Cos. of Coral Gables, FL, failed to pay its property taxes. Fleet Bank owns the mall.
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