City of Southfield to buy empty Northland Center mall

The City of Southfield is buying the now-vacant Northland Center mall and plans to demolish the structure in hopes of attracting development.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Wendy Potts on Wednesday authorized the $2.4-million sale of the 114-acre property expected to close in mid-December. The mall property has been under the control of a court-appointed receiver for more than a year.

Southfield Mayor Donald Fracassi said the city intends to raze the 1.4-million-square-foot enclosed mall, then sell the acreage for a potential future mixed-use development.

The demolition and remediation is projected to cost $8 million to $10 million and take about a year.

"We plan to demolish it and clean it up so it can be sold to a qualified property developer who will build a new, revitalized mixed-use development containing office, retail and residential space,” Fracassi said in a statement. “We bought it because we did not want Northland Center to become a vacant shopping center significantly blighting the community."

"The 'Northland' name is synonymous with 'Southfield,' and it’s important that we find the finest development possible for this site," Fracassi added.

Northland: It's never been just a mall

The nation's first regional shopping mall, Northland opened in 1954 and closed its doors this April after years of gradual decline. It was owned by a subsidiary of New York-based Ashkenazy Acquisition, which lost the mall after defaulting on a $31-million loan on which $27 million was still owed.

Ashkenazy also owns the Eastland Center mall in Harper Woods, which is currently in receivership, yet in much better health than Northland was in its final years.

John Polderman, an attorney for the Northland mall's court-appointed receiver Frank Simon, said there were several other offers for the mall, but Southfield's was the firmest and most practical. The sale had been opposed by Foot Locker, a former tenant.

The former Macy's department store (originally Hudson's) was included in the sale, although the former Target and J.C. Penney stores were not. The old JC.Penney was purchased in December 2013 by Triumph Church.

Local development experts have suggested several redevelopment possibilities for the Northland site, including an open-air center of one to two anchor stores such as a Kroger, accompanied by strips of smaller retail, restaurants and coffee shops. There is a general consensus on what would not work: another enclosed mall.

"The mall draws different people than an open-air center will, and that will make a difference," said Thomas Guastello, owner of Center Management in Birmingham. "Once it is leveled, it can be a very viable area. ... You're right by a freeway, and you're in the heart of some very good population."

There are several examples in suburban Detroit of successful shopping centers born from the remnants of dead or dying enclosed malls, including the redeveloped Tel-Twelve, Universal, Wonderland and Livonia malls. There is also a prominent example of one shuttered Oakland County mall — Summit Place Mall in Waterford — that still sits empty.

Waterford Supervisor Gary Wall said Wednesday that Summit Place's fate will be the topic of a planned Oct. 29 meeting between township and county officials and those with the property's owner, Los Angeles-based SR Capital. The mall has been closed since 2009.

There is a possible deal in the works that would involve razing older sections of Summit Place and redeveloping the newer part, Wall said. If the deal doesn't happen, the next likely step would be full demolition. And under that scenario, the township would probably not follow Southfield's lead and buy the mall outright in order to demolish it.

"We're not in the real estate business," Wall said.

The fall of Northland also prompted Southfield to take on the role of art buyer. In April, the city bought the iconic Marshall M. Fredericks' "Boy and Bear" sculpture and other artwork in the mall for $500,000.