Mayfair's former Boston Store has been sold to Wauwatosa for nearly $4 million. City officials are looking for new uses for the site.
Mayfair's former Boston Store has been sold for nearly $4 million to the Wauwatosa Community Development Authority — which will seek new uses for the long-vacant building.
The authority bought the two-story, 216,664-square foot building, and its 15-acre lot, at an auction for $3.95 million.
The decision to purchase the property shows the faith the city has in Mayfair mall as an economic beacon, and is an investment in its future, according to Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride.
“Mayfair is the premier shopping center in the entire state of Wisconsin. We expect that to continue, and our efforts today and in the future will be to make sure that we support that,” said McBride.
He also said that the idea is to meld the purchase into a public-private partnership model that will allow the city to ensure the right business eventually occupies the space.
“The idea was to make sure that whatever happened over at Mayfair happened in a way that is most beneficial to the taxpayers of Wauwatosa," McBride said.
“We wanted to make sure that we could control the future of the property so that whatever ends up filling it is consistent with the high-quality occupants the mall already has," McBride said.
He added that the city has no plans to hold the property for long.
Mayfair is Wauwatosa's second-largest taxpayer, and city officials want the former Boston Store to generate property tax revenue under private use.
“What we're trying to do is make sure that we maximize the value of that space so that it has the greatest beneficial impact on the property tax base," McBride said.
He declined to comment on potential future uses for the property.
“We've had preliminary talks with a number of business entities that have ideas that we think would be extremely good for our tax base," McBride said.
Mayfair has seen other transformations, including the 2020 conversion of a former office building into the 12-story, 196-room Renaissance Milwaukee West Hotel.
“I wouldn't be surprised at all if by the end of the year we had a proposal from some high-level developer for that property," he said.
Plans for other vacant Boston Store properties
The Greendale Village Board in December approved a preliminary agreement that calls for selling the property to Barrett Lo Visionary Development LLC.
Meanwhile, Brookfield Square Mall's former Boston Store is to be demolished and replaced with mid-rise office buildings, and possibly other new developments, under plans announced in November by Irgens Partners LLC.
Also, the former Bayshore Boston Store, in Glendale, was converted into a new Target department store and supermarket. It opened in October.
Finally, downtown Milwaukee's former Boston Store just landed its first retail tenant: a small format Kohl's department store, which is to open in 2023.
All of the properties went vacant after Bon-Ton Stores Inc., the Boston Store chain's corporate parent, was liquidated in 2018.
Tom Daykin, of the Journal Sentinel, contributed to this article.
Beck Andrew Salgado can be reached at 512-568-4070 or Bsalgado@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Beck_Salgado.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: City of Wauwatosa buys Mayfair Mall space for nearly $4 Million
