ALEXANDRIA, VA–Howard Hughes Corp. has acquired the 11.4-acre Macy's store and parking lot at Landmark Mall for an undisclosed price. The company, which owns the central section of the Landmark Mall site, has been working with adjoining property owners, Sears and Macy's, to explore a redevelopment of Landmark Mall, according to the City of Alexandria.

With Macy's now acquired, Howard Hughes Corp. says it is planning to move forward with plans to redevelop the enclosed mall and the Macy's parcel into an open-air, mixed-use project that will have retail, residential and entertainment uses as well as multiple plazas and green spaces, outdoor seating, an updated transit center and a luxury cinema. “Our vision is to revive the site and create a new urban hub on the west end of Alexandria,” Mark Bulmash, SVP for Howard Hughes Corp. said in a prepared statement.

Howard Hughes Corp. is planning to close the interior part of Landmark Mall at the end of January. A definitive timeline for the redevelopment has not been finalized.

The Landmark Macy's is among the 100 stores the retailer recently announced it was closing. Howard Hughes is not the only REIT to take advantage of — or is that make the best of ? — the closing to revamp a mall. PREIT has announced that the impending closing of three Macy's stores in its mall portfolio (Moorestown, NJ; Plymouth Meeting, PA; and Valley View Mall, LaCrosse, WI) will allow it to reposition the store real estate quickly, taking advantage of marketplace changes affecting the mall properties.