Simon’s Atlanta-Area Mall Gets No Bids At Foreclosure Auction, Winds Up With Lender
Another major Metro Atlanta mall has gone back to its lender.
Two CMBS loans attached to Simon Property Group's Town Center at Cobb mall were foreclosed on and returned to lender Deutsche Bank this week, the Cobb Business Journal reported. There were no bids at an auction Tuesday on the 560K SF retail portion of the 1.2M SF regional mall that was the subject of the distressed loans, the Journal reported.
“It's unfortunate that a mall that size, with that kind of tax base and everything, would be foreclosed on,” Cobb County Commissioner JoAnn Birrell told the Journal. “There could be developers or companies that may look at purchasing it, but with things the way they are — the pandemic, so many businesses closing because of COVID — it’s not a good time.”
The loan for the mall, off Ernest Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw, was split across two separate CMBS deals with one valued at $116.8M and another at $62.6M, according to CMBS research firm Trepp. The value of the mall covered under the loans dropped from $322M in 2012 to $130.4M at the time of foreclosure.
Simon owns six other malls and shopping centers in Georgia, including Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza, both in Buckhead.
This is not the first large mall owned by a publicly traded retail giant to head back to its lender this year.
In January, Brookfield Property Partners transferred the deed to the 1.3M SF North Point Mall in Alpharetta back to its lender, New York Life Insurance Co. Known as a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure, Brookfield's loan was valued at a little over $200M at the time of its transfer.
New York Life has since tapped Trademark Property Co. to develop a master plan to overhaul North Point Mall and the surrounding property. It is unclear what Deutsche Bank's plans are for its new mall.
