Banks take over Granite Run Mall
New management for the Media-area mall, which boasts a string of big-named department stores but suffers from declining store value and higher vacancy
The Philadelphia office of Washington-based mall-manager Madison Marquette, headed locally by John-david W. Franklin, has taken over leasing and management at Granite Run Mall near Media, home to Sears, Boscov's, JCPenney, Kohl's, an AMC theater, an Acme supermarket, and more than 100,000 sq ft of empty space.
"We have a national platform of very high-end centers," Franklin told me. "We just started on April 1. Granite Run has an excellent location in terms of the Philadelphia region. It's an older mall." What does "high-end" mean? Boutiques? Nordstrom's? "It's premature to put any expectations out there."
Madison is working for CW Capital Management, the loan-servicing outfit that's trying to refinance unpaid debt owed by previous Granite Run owners Simon Property Group and Macerich Co., as I wrote here. As of last fall, national investors Simon (based in Indiana) and Macerich (of California) owed (and had defaulted on) $115 million borrowed to buy the property, which by then was worth just $94 million, according to Horsham-based Realpoint.
Madison Marquette's other local properties include Glen Eagle Square, a 150,000 sq ft center in Chadds Ford, where Madison recently signed Whole Foods to the vacant former Genuardi's space; and the stores and restaurants at the Radian building next to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.