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Shopping Centers Today -> December 2001
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SYRACUSE MALL CALLS IT QUITS — BUT OWNER DOESN’T
By Donna Mitchell
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| COR development is replacing Fayetteville Mall with this open-air center designed to complement nearby competitors. |
When a tired, old mall is killed by newer, bigger centers that open nearby, it isn’t always the end of the story.
The Fayetteville (New York) Mall stood nearly vacant for years, its fate sealed when two other malls went up nearby. And they weren’t any two malls, either: One was Carousel Center, a 1.5 million-square-foot super-regional center in Syracuse that the Syracuse, N.Y.-based Pyramid Cos. opened in 1990 about 10 miles away. Fayetteville Mall withered as Carousel Center prospered, the latter benefiting from tax abatements that allowed it to obtain competitive tenant lease agreements, local observers say. Delivering a coup de grace, last year Pyramid unveiled plans for a massive expansion that will triple Carousel’s size and could make it the largest mall in the country. The other center that speeded Fayetteville Mall’s demise, Shoppingtown Mall, is in Dewitt, just three miles away. Owned by Wilmorite Co., the 945,000-square-foot regional center underwent a $53 million expansion and renovation in 1989.
The new centers created a surplus of retail space in the Syracuse market, guaranteeing that Fayetteville Mall could not survive in its current form, said Mark Foerster, an executive vice president at Rochester, N.Y.-based Wilmorite Co., which at one point owned the Fayetteville and Shoppingtown malls.
For years, the nearly 700,000-square-foot Fayetteville Mall hung on, losing all its anchors and a good many of its specialty retailers, too. Even the handful of tenants that remained operated on a month-to-month basis, according to Louis P. Aiello, CEO of Syracuse-based COR Development Co., which finished purchasing the mall in September. The company finally put Fayetteville Mall out of its misery when it demolished the structure in October.
But that is not the end of the matter. COR Development plans to replace it with the Towne Center at Fayetteville, an open-air, single-level neighborhood center that will complement, rather than compete with, its neighboring giants. Spanning 400,000 square feet, not including outparcels, it will feature anchors such as P&C Supermarkets, Stickley Furniture and one of the area’s first Target stores, said Aiello. It will also have local shops, including a shoe store, a gift shop and a popular beauty salon owner that has operated in the area for about 25 years.
But
retail will not be The Towne Center’s only trick: Turning itself
into a village, of sorts, it will also feature an extensive lineup
of nonretail tenants and amenities: An investment company, a bank,
and a billing and records firm have been lined up as potential occupants.
COR Development also has sold a portion of the property to the YMCA
for $15 million to build a community center there, and the company
intends to set aside about two acres on the site to build a gazebo
and small park for public use.
The developers plan to give the center a village feel by using redbrick buildings and New England style architecture, arranging the stores in a U-shape. Parking will go between the outparcels and the main shopping area.
Fayetteville is an affluent area near Syracuse, with scenic, hilly surroundings. But the Towne Center at Fayetteville will not attempt to go upscale, which would put it up against the Shoppingtown Mall and Carousel Center, Aiello said. “For us it is a supplement to the mall, not competition.”
Contractors broke ground on the project Oct. 3, and are scheduled to complete construction around the same time in 2002.
COR Development, which specializes in strip and power centers — it has developed seven other properties throughout New York — is investing $30 million in revamping this old mall site. Key Bank, Cleveland, provided the construction loan, but as of press time, COR Development was still searching for a permanent lender to replace it once the project is finished.
GE Capital, a specialty lender of Stamford, Conn.; Equitable Life, New York City; and The Penn Traffic Co., a supermarket operator, Syracuse, had previously owned the mall before selling it to COR Development.
“It took longer to put [the purchase contract] together than it will take to build it,” Aiello joked.
But it was a good investment of time, nevertheless, according to observers familiar with the property.
“I think this is a good repositioning of the property,” Foerster said. “There still is a demand for other types of retail — big-box, furniture — the kinds of things that COR is doing with the project.”
Local authorities were quick to give approval for the new center.
“People were sick of looking at a vacant, ugly mall for 10 years,” Aiello said. “We’re trying to set it up so that it’s something we’re proud of and the town is proud of.”
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