No one knows if the Bangor Mall as we know it will ever reopen after the deteriorating building was condemned by the city last week over longstanding code violations.
Local business leaders are working to relocate the mall’s remaining businesses when possible, and the annual craft fair that usually takes place inside the mall will still happen, this time inside the furniture store that is adjacent to the mall but separately owned.
But the mall’s future is in limbo after a key investor dropped out of a local developer’s plan to buy the structure and turn it into a mix of retail and housing. The mall’s current owner, Namdar Realty Group, has a history of leaving malls shuttered in towns across the country over unsafe building conditions, and the company does not usually make the repairs needed to reopen.
The interested buyer, Bangor Marketplace and Residences LLC, still has the option to purchase the mall and is talking with the city’s code enforcement department about the building’s issues, according to State Sen. Joe Baldacci, who has served as a go-between amid plans to sell the property.
“It doesn’t really change whether or not they can go forward with the sale,” Baldacci said, since the buyer was already aware of many of the issues. The buyer is also working to secure additional financing for the development, he said, adding that he’s hopeful the deal will go through. “It’s costing us more money by having it just sit there languishing,” he said.
Michael Cole, a representative for the prospective buyer, did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, some of the businesses and nonprofits that remained inside the mall until Nov. 2 are working to relocate.
Anne Krieg, Bangor’s economic development director, said her office has been in touch with those businesses and is working with the owners of the Airport Mall on Union Street, as well as the Downtown Bangor Partnership, to find new locations.
“It looks like there’s some promising leads,” Krieg said.
Some Theater Company planned to put on its production of “Les Miserables” inside the mall, but has since pivoted to the former Bangor Arts Exchange building. The show will run from Dec. 3-13.
Betsy Lundy, who runs the Downtown Bangor Partnership, noted that while “downtown has incredibly low vacancy,” there are some temporary and long-term spaces available.
Mall businesses are in a tough spot, she said, because they had already paid their November rents to Namdar by the time the mall closed on Nov. 2.
Lundy aims to help some of those businesses find a new storefront or set up pop-ups downtown during the holiday season. She also said she’s found some business owners downtown who are willing to host a displaced business in a corner of their own shop.
Lundy pointed out that the mall businesses have a tight-knit community of their own, and the store managers are local.
“For us, it would be an amazing thing if a core group of them came into downtown,” she said.
Kathy Harvey, who owns Furniture, Mattresses and More, will host the craft fair this year inside her store, which is empty after she closed it last month. She sold the building to another company earlier this year, although she said Friday she can’t yet reveal who the buyer is.
She noted that her building is up to code, and that she secured an occupancy permit for the craft fair. The store is even bigger than the mall space where the fair took place last year.
“This is an empty store with nothing but crafters,” Harvey said.
The craft fair ran this past weekend and will continue Nov. 14 and 15. It will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Harvey noted that she’ll have free coffee, pictures with Santa, a raffle and vendors selling lunch for customers — and that she’s added additional pop-up fair dates on Nov. 28 and Dec. 5
Harvey was prepared for the possibility of having to relocate the fair, as the mall’s shutdown has been years in the making.
The mall owner has lost three lawsuits over conditions at the mall, including one filed by the city two years ago over a roof leak, and owes over $2 million as a result. For months the city has tried to compel Namdar to fix the health and safety concerns, which could have allowed the mall to stay open, the city said in a statement last week.
The city also named a lack of heat and operational bathrooms as reasons why it needed to condemn the building. It already condemned the former Sears wing in January, forcing stores to move elsewhere in the mall.
“Unfortunately, the violations have reached a point that mandatory closure is necessary to protect the health and safety of employees and customers,” the city said.
Namdar did not respond to a request for comment.
If the precedent Namdar has set in other towns around the country is any indication, this may be the end of the Bangor Mall as we know it.
“They have a choice. They could sell the building as is or they can choose to fix it up and to reoccupy it. It’s really up to them at this point,” Krieg said of the company. She noted that the city has given Namdar a list of code violations that it needs to address.
“They have indicated to our code office that they do intend to fix them, but I haven’t heard any movement in that direction at this time,” she said Thursday.
Historically, Namdar has not shown a willingness to rebound from mall closures.
Krieg’s comments closely resemble the story in Enfield, Connecticut, where another Namdar mall closed earlier this year due to a lack of working sprinklers, leaving just an attached Target store operating. The mall is sitting empty after the company told tenants it has no plans to reopen.
Aaron Marcavitch, Enfield’s economic development director, said the town’s building department shut the mall down last winter.
“The ownership has indicated that they’re going to do something, but we’re not seeing anything,” Marcavitch said. “There’s not been any plan submitted for any repairs or anything like that. So, at this point, it appears that the building is just going to remain closed.”
Several developers are interested in the property, he said, so the town is waiting to see what happens. Most of the remaining mall businesses have had no luck finding a new location because Namdar offered very low rents, Marcavitch added.
“It’s just been so run down for close to 10 years,” he said.
Similar series of events have played out again and again with other Namdar malls.
Most of the Regency Square Mall in Jacksonville is being demolished after a developer bought it from Namdar last year with plans to build a mixed retail and residential complex. Under Namdar’s ownership, the mall had been hit with fines for issues like molding and falling down ceiling tiles, leaks, and nonfunctional heating and air conditioning.
In Pennsylvania, the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against Namdar over the nearly impassable roads at the Pittsburgh Mills mall. The company repaved most of the roads after that, and a prospective buyer announced this week that it’s in the process of buying the site, possibly for use as a data center.
Namdar also missed a court-ordered deadline in Chicago last month to present a security plan for its shuttered Ford City Mall, which was shut down by the court system in June and has been the site of mass break-ins, a fatal shooting and drag racing in the parking lot since it closed. The building is under contract to be sold to a developer that wants to turn it into a warehouse campus.
“They really don’t care about the community piece of things,” Lundy said.