On the eve of the West Ridge Mall auction……some random thoughts come to mind.
Did Topeka misrepresent itself to the Simon brothers? Mel and Herb overbuilt the mall by 30%. What or who ever gave them the notion our city would ever grow? These guys wanted to have more space to accommodate a perceived boom in retail. Back then the mall business was booming. Has Topeka ever boomed?
Topeka made it hard to make a profit from the start. Did you know the Simon company had to redevelop the Wanamaker Road from 17th to 21st and from I-470 to Wanamaker? This was to have the honor to come to our city. The city was nice enough to create a benefit district, still the created higher specials and less profitable real estate for the owners.
Everyone is quick to blame the evil landlord when maybe the conditions to operate the business made them evil. Think about this, Topeka is smaller today than the day the mall was built.
As time marched on Simon spun off this center to Washington Prime. The president WPG was an accountant and a close relative of the village idiot when it comes to day-to-day operations of a mall. Soon they went bankrupt. Current ownership is the note holder of a Wells Fargo mortgage gone bad in a billion-dollar tranche.
What are they selling? All the specialty space and the anchor that originally was Montgomery Wards and most recently Burlington coat. All the other anchors own their own land and buildings.
West Ridge Mall is still good real estate, I curious what it will evolve into?
Time will tell.
Merry Christmas
