Eastland Mall heading back to the auction block

Brian R. Ball

Staff reporter-Columbus Business First

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The lender who took the keys of Eastland Mall last summer has put the property back on the market.

The South Hamilton Road retail fixture is being marketed on the Central Ohio Commercial Information Exchange and through Auction.com, where a final live auction will take place March 24-26.

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank agent Benton Benalcazar said the property has a minimum price of $5 million.

"We have a number of bidders who have offered the minimum," Benalcazar told me. "It will sell."

The brokerage has been quietly marketing the 613,042-square-foot property but decided to ramp up its efforts.

"We decided to blast it to the local commercial real estate market," Benalcazar told me.

The auction does not include the anchor-owned Sears and Macy's department stores at Eastland, but the soon-to-be-vacant J.C. Penney store and the long-vacant space once occupied by Lazarus are part of the deal. Newmark Grubb said the other 240,652 square feet of in-line retail space is about 24 percent vacant.

The J.C. Penney closing in May "probably will have an impact on the final value," Benalcazar said.

"There's still some value there," he said. "There's an opportunity for mall investors to redevelop the property."

Eastland Mall dates back to 1968 when it was one of three developed in suburban Columbus by Cleveland developer Richard E. Jacobs Group. Glimcher Realty Trust renovated the property in 2005 soon after buying it but in 2012 took an $18.5 million write-down of the property's value against a $40 million loan.

The Columbus-based retail real estate investment trust, which has since merged with Washington Prime Group (NYSE:WPG), put Eastland on Auction.com last June in a bid to sell the property to benefit loan servicer LNR Partners LLC of Miami Beach, Florida. But LNR rejected the top $18 million bid offered and took control of the property in July.