Business
Northgate Mall in Durham to close permanently, citing COVID-19 economic strain
Northgate Mall, a Durham shopping center that has been in decline for years, is closing permanently, its owners said Monday.
Northwood Retail, the company that manages the property, is closing the mall because of the “extreme financial difficulties” that the property and its tenants are currently experiencing, Jonathan Stewart, head of leasing for the mall, said in an email.
“The severe impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has changed the way we live and socialize, has resulted in extreme financial difficulties experienced by a majority of our tenants and the property,” Stewart said in the email. “Effective immediately, we have made the decision to permanently cease operations at the interior of the Northgate Mall.”
Tenants operating outside of the mall but still on the Northgate property will reopen when it is appropriate, Stewart added. That includes the Northgate Stadium 10 movie theater.
“We understand this is difficult news and want to assure our tenants and the community that this decision was not made lightly,” he said. “We are committed to working with our tenants to provide relief for the duration of their leases and are connecting them with local small business support services.”
Neither Stewart nor Northwood Retail, a subsidiary of Northwood Investors, answered phone calls about the closure.
Northwood Investors bought Northgate Mall in 2018 for $34.5 million, after the mall was close to going into foreclosure. Northwood, which has built several mixed-use developments in the Triangle through its Northwood Ravin subsidiary, has since moved to transform the mall into something entirely new.
While no plans have yet been released for what will come next for Northgate Mall, Northwood has hosted several community engagement meetings around how to redevelop the large property north of downtown Durham. Representatives of Northwood told The News & Observer in January that they are still studying the project.
Some neighbors in the adjacent Walltown neighborhood have raised concerns in recent years about the impact redevelopment of the mall could have on property values in what has historically been a working-class neighborhood.
Northgate Mall has existed in some form on Club Boulevard north of downtown Durham since the 1960s.
The mall, like many others across America, has been in flux for many years. It struggled as some of its largest department store tenants left in the face of competition from internet retailers such as Amazon and from newer malls such as Durham’s Streets at Southpoint.
A Macy’s department store located at Northgate closed in 2017, for instance, and that portion of the property was eventually bought by Duke University. The Sears department store located at Northgate closed in 2018, and its building was also purchased by Northwood.
After trying to redevelop the mall on their own, Northgate’s previous owner accrued a large amount of debt, which ultimately forced it to sale most of the property to Northwood.
Comments