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The long demise of Portland’s oldest shopping mall, Lloyd Center, continues.
Last week, in a call with investors, according to Bloomberg Law, KKR Real Estate Trust Finance Inc. said it was foreclosing on the 61-year-old property, which is currently owned by Cypress Equities, a Dallas-based firm.
COVID-19 has brutalized traditional retailers but, as WW has reported, Lloyd Center struggled long before the pandemic.
Related: Will Lloyd Center Last Another Christmas? A Week Inside a Mall on the Edge.
In 2015, the Portland Business Journal reported that KKR loaned Cypress Equities $177 million and that the new money would help renovate the property, which sits on nearly 22 acres.
But the makeover, which included spiffing up the food court and polishing up the mall’s ice rink, wasn’t enough to stem an industry decline that has affected malls across the country. Nordstrom left Lloyd Center in 2015, Sears left the following year, and Marshall’s exited in 2018. And last year, Macy’s called it quits.
In August of this year, an electrical fire closed the mall for nearly three weeks in the back-to-school shopping season—and then it suffered two more mysterious fires.
KKR Real Estate Trust president Patrick Mattson said his firm has plans to shift the mall’s focus, according to a transcript of the investor call.
“Upon taking title, which is targeted for the fourth quarter,” Mattson said, “we will begin to prepare for a comprehensive redevelopment of the site, which we expect will include multiple uses, including residential and creative offices.”
A representative for Lloyd Center didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.