Lifestyle Center to Replace 1M-SF Universal Mall

WARREN, MI-The owner of the 960,000-sf Universal Mall has started its demolition, with plans to turn the former indoor mall, now almost vacant, into a lifestyle center. Universal Mall Properties LLC will leave the last three remaining anchors intact–Burlington Coat Factory, A.J. Wright and the Cinemark dollar movie theater–but the rest will be torn down to allow the construction of a 135,000-sf Target and about 35 other stores in about 650,000-sf of space.

The owner is spending about $24 million to build the 35 stores. “I don’t know how much Target is spending for their store,” says Marilyn Zeigler, managing director for the mall. The Target will open in July 2009. Demolition started this week on the site at Dequindre and 12 Mile roads.

The mall was built in the mid-1960s, and had its heyday in the 1970s, but as its anchors bankrupted or closed the retailers slowly went away. The current owner bought the site in 1999. “We refurbished the property the best we could. It was about 40% vacant, but we filled another 25% with mom and pops, and temp tenants, giving locals a chance to expand a store or just start a dream they had. Over the years, though, the competition got younger, and we had to do something.”