CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Former Charleston mayor Danny Jones said Tuesday one of the former owners of the Charleston Town Center Mall may try to repurchase the mall out of receivership.
The mall, which is scheduled for public auction Jan. 24 on the steps of the Kanawha County Courthouse, has been in receivership for nearly a year after its former owners defaulted on a $100 million loan.
Jones said Youngstown, Ohio-based Cafaro Company, which owns malls in Barboursville and Bridgeport, may try to repurchase the mall for $20-25 million. He added that the company may target purchasing the parking garage as well, which sits on land owned by the Charleston Urban Renewal Authority (CURA).
“They (Cafaro) want to come back in,” Jones said. “They may say, ‘look we will buy you out of debt but we want the parking free.’ They want CURA to give them the parking garage.”
The CURA deal has long been a contention for mall owners. The authority owns the land where the parking garages are located. CURA received $300,000 year from the mall owners.
The income stopped after the national real estate firm CBRE Group was appointed as the receiver.
Jones said the mall issue would likely be one of the largest earlier challenges for Mayor Amy Goodwin, who replaced Jones Monday.
Jones said his advice to Goodwin on the issue is to make a well-thought-out response.
“This is a tough one here,” he said. “She has good advisors on these kinds of issues. There are good lawyers representing our interests.”
Jones also predicted that one of the mall’s anchors, Macy’s, may soon be leaving in the coming months which would be a major hit to all retailers inside the facility. Macy’s currently does not pay rent at the mall, dating back to a deal struck between former mall owner Forest City Enterprises to keep the retailer there.
“All the leases in the mall are affected because there will only be one anchor,” he said. “In these leases, there is a clause that says there has to be two anchors. There is a lot of pressure on a lot of people.”
Jones said the mall has lost 40 percent of its tenants in recent years.
The mall owners received a $100 million loan given by the U.S. Bank Association. The mall since defaulted on the loan, owing $93 million of it, forcing the U.S. Bank National Association to file a lawsuit against Charleston Town Center SPE Inc. in November 2017.
In a related issue, Kanawha Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit said last week she would rule in the near future on a joint motion that would transfer $172,000 in mall tenant parking fees to the garage side of the operation. She said the decision would be made well before the Jan. 24 auction.
Cafaro Company could not be reached for comment when this story was published on Tuesday. Cafaro Company refuted the comments from Jones on Wednesday.
MetroNews’ Jeff Jenkins contributed to this story.