Current anchor tenants of Forest Fair Village include Bass Pro Shops, Kohl's and Babies “R” Us leasing 142,552 square feet, 116,328 square feet and 38,500 square feet respectively. But the remaining leases are short-term, and any new owner will be able to quickly move forward with redevelopment plans.

Located at 1047 Forest Fair Dr. in the northeast quadrant of the I-275 / Winton Rd. interchange, Forest Fair Village offers nearly 2,000 feet of highway frontage which carries daily traffic of more than 97,000 vehicles. The site is readily accessible to I-71 and I-75 corridors and offers easy access to the entire tristate market.

Senior managing directors Joshua Young, Keith Yearout and Jim Vondran will lead the brokerage team, along with Thompson, and managing directors Darin Armbruster and Chris Nachtrab.

“Local city and county governments are eager to assist with a redevelopment on this great site,” adds Thompson. “Forest Fair has a bright future but we need a very large user to help kick-off the redevelopment. If you are 'thinking big' in the Midwest, this is a site that will be very attractive.”

Although many traditional malls have fallen on hard times, Thompson says they won't all die out. The Kenwood Towne Mall in Cincinnati, for example, was built in 1956 but still has great sales and rental rates. But in the next few years, “more of these malls will be closing and we need to find other uses for them.”

CINCINNATI—The advent of online shopping is transforming the retail landscape, and many big malls are about to see drastic changes. Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has been appointed to market such a property in the Cincinnati metro area. Cincinnati Commercial Real Estate, an OH corporation and part of NGKF's organization, will act as the exclusive broker in the sale of Forest Fair Village, the 1.9 million square foot mall located in Forest Park, a northwestern suburb.

“This is a very good location, but it has not made it as a retail mall,” John Thompson, managing director, NGKF, tells GlobeSt.com. Built in 1989 on a 90-acre site, over the years its owners have tried several strategies, including both high-end and discount retail, but nothing worked. “We need to find folks that can use it for something other than retail.”

“We've already gotten a lot of interest and we expect to get a lot more,” he adds. A redevelopment effort could make the property ideal for high tech or light industrial users, many of which want to expand operations in the US, or medical providers that need new locations convenient for their patients. Other possibilities include office, governmental, residential, sports and recreation or educational concepts.

It's possible that a new owner will tear down parts of the mall, Thompson says, but the existing structures retain a lot of value. If a buyer just wanted the 90 acres, the $55 million asking price would be more expensive on a per acre basis than other similar pieces of land in the area. But deciding on a reuse would mean the buyer picked up well-maintained buildings for the reasonable price of about $28 per square foot. “It would be difficult to reproduce these buildings for those kinds of dollars.”

Current anchor tenants of Forest Fair Village include Bass Pro Shops, Kohl's and Babies “R” Us leasing 142,552 square feet, 116,328 square feet and 38,500 square feet respectively. But the remaining leases are short-term, and any new owner will be able to quickly move forward with redevelopment plans.

Located at 1047 Forest Fair Dr. in the northeast quadrant of the I-275 / Winton Rd. interchange, Forest Fair Village offers nearly 2,000 feet of highway frontage which carries daily traffic of more than 97,000 vehicles. The site is readily accessible to I-71 and I-75 corridors and offers easy access to the entire tristate market.

Senior managing directors Joshua Young, Keith Yearout and Jim Vondran will lead the brokerage team, along with Thompson, and managing directors Darin Armbruster and Chris Nachtrab.

“Local city and county governments are eager to assist with a redevelopment on this great site,” adds Thompson. “Forest Fair has a bright future but we need a very large user to help kick-off the redevelopment. If you are 'thinking big' in the Midwest, this is a site that will be very attractive.”

Although many traditional malls have fallen on hard times, Thompson says they won't all die out. The Kenwood Towne Mall in Cincinnati, for example, was built in 1956 but still has great sales and rental rates. But in the next few years, “more of these malls will be closing and we need to find other uses for them.”