Signature Associates

Partridge Creek, Fairlane malls under new management in receivership

Two troubled metro Detroit malls have come under new management and one of them recently went into receivership amid financial woes.

The Mall at Partridge Creek in Clinton Township and Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn are now being managed and marketed for lease by Syracuse, N.Y.-based Spinoso Real Estate Group LLC.

Partridge Creek also has come under the thumb of a receiver, a step in the foreclosure process, in the last two months or so, according to loan commentary from New York City-based Trepp LLC, which tracks commercial mortgage-backed securities performance and data.

Both the 600,000-plus-square foot Mall at Partridge Creek at 17420 Hall Road and Fairlane Town Center, which is 1.4 million square feet at 18900 Michigan Ave., are listed as part of the Spinoso Real Estate Group’s portfolio on the company’s website, with site plans for the malls current as of Sept. 27 and Oct. 12, respectively.

Spinoso staff Thursday afternoon confirmed the company has management and leasing deals for the two properties, which have fallen behind on their commercial mortgage loans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emails and text messages were sent to representatives of Spinoso seeking further details.

Spinoso has been active in legacy mall management in recent years, having worked on leasing and management for Eastland Center in Harper Woods, Westland Mall in Westland and Northland Center in Southfield.

Eastland Center is expected to be torn down in the coming months to make way for new industrial and warehouse space, while demolition has begun on the vacant Northland Center as the new ownership group, Bloomfield Hills-based Contour Cos., plans a massive multifamily mixed-use development on the site.

The Partridge Creek receivership appointment puts a sort of punctuation mark on the open-air shopping mall’s decline the last few years, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, a shift away from brick-and-mortar retail to online shopping and the loss of anchor department store tenants like Nordstrom and Carson’s and other businesses.

The possibility of a receiver, which has the power to sell the property and assume control of its finances and management, at Partridge Creek has been known since March.

However, this is the first time it’s been revealed that one has been appointed, although the identity of the receiver is not known.

The appointment comes 18 months or more after Fairlane Town Center came under the control of Dallas-based receiver Chris Neilson and his Dallas-based firm Trigild.

Fairlane Town Center and two other malls in Virginia and Texas made up a three-mall portfolio owned by Miami Beach, Fla.-based Starwood Capital Group that defaulted on a $161 million CMBS loan, on which it owes $127.2 million. Those three malls are now valued at just $89 million, compared with $345.2 million when Starwood paid what was then Taubman Centers Inc. (now Taubman Co. LLC) $1.4 billion for them, Trepp data this summer showed.

Partridge Creek also fell into default on a $725 million CMBS debt, which is secured by it and three other malls. It owes $681 million. In June, Crain’s reported that those four malls have a combined value of just $210.6 million, compared with $1.074 billion when they were bought seven years ago.

An email was sent Thursday morning to a spokesperson for Starwood Capital Partners seeking comment and additional details on the receivership. Trigild also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Posted By: Crain’s Detroit Business on October 21, 2021.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

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